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These are answers that paraclete has provided in Politics
| Question/Answer | | nesteu asked on 12/08/10 - account practices and non users how non user benefit from accounting practice paraclete answered on 08/12/11:Who is the non user? Accountants work hard to maintain integrity in business reporting. the truth is hard to find and some fail but we have in mind to tell the truth sometimes fearlessly | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 01/28/10 - HELLO!
WOW! No activity!
HANK
paraclete answered on 04/06/10:No you are right Hank but then it is quiet in the other place too just a few contributors | | Question/Answer | | ivanpescy asked on 12/15/09 - las vegas i had that the man who got the plan of building las vegas borrowed money from maffia's and later killed how true is it and which year was it paraclete answered on 12/24/09:yes seems he might have been part of the mob, and they look after their own | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 05/18/09 - Liar, liar pants on fire Krudd has just announced on national TV quite contrary to the budget speech of his Treasurer that Australia's peak debt will be $300 Billion not $188 Billion as announced less than a week ago. This represents 13.8% of GDP not the 5% his treasurer had indicated. Not only did Swann misled the Parliament, he misled the Australian people in his address. We have gone far beyond banana republic here, at this rate we will become the poor man of the pacific in the next decade.
What I want the know is why isn't the opposition howling for his blood, because Krudd says this is all clearly laid out in the budget papers? paraclete answered on 05/18/09:Swanny has just been selective in his statistics, just as Krudd was being selective. With a 1000 page document to be selective about who knows what little gems will emerge
You know as well as I do that politicians tell us only what they want us to know and what has happened here is we have been spoon fed the bad news a little at a time so we would get used to the idea. We have been manipulated once again.
I hope the opposition has the guts to bring on a double dissolution and chuck these idiots out. | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 03/24/09 - Ne how ma, Mr Obama? China has finally flexed it's muscles and we will soon be thing in terms of Yuan insted of dollars
http://business.smh.com.au/business/china-muscles-up-but-rudd-backs-america-20090324-98w4.html
You cannot acquire all the money in the world and then be prepared to use someoneelses currancy as a staple, now that america has been bailed out by China it is time to move over. Better get prepared to speak mandarin too. Krudd does, is he the vangard of the new world order, si she paraclete answered on 03/25/09:yes Yuan with soon be the thing, now how does it go 5 to the dollar or was that 6. I don't know how Yuan would work though, China has a serious counterfeiting problem. We will all soon be on the Beijing dong with ding-dong Krudd. I expect China will buy the IMF or the World Bank redeeming its dollars for something more useful and enduring. It was a grave mistake to awaken the sleeping dragon, now who was it who warned against that? ne how ma Mr Jintao we will all need to learn.
We have all been lured to dismantle our industries and allow China to do the manufacturing and incur the pollution for us.
Now where do we go from here. China wants the pollution in exports to be counted against the importing countries, an interesting twist for the kyoto advocates. They want to export green house gas abatement to those who have freed themselves significantly from the problem by exporting the polluting industries. | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 03/24/09 - The US favours the Krudd approach? The US favours the export of the Krudd approach to the the GFC.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25234711-2,00.html
This cannot be good, that backwoods Kev has the needed approach. Obama you have been eclipsed by Krudd, you may as well resign now becuase there is just nothing more to be said, no more "yes we can" just "me too!" paraclete answered on 03/24/09:we really have to get a grip on this, the Krudd is spreading, it's not enough that we should be subjected to Krudd economics but now the whole world is getting a dose of Krudd.
Before long we will see largesse a plenty, governments robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, bank deposits guaranteed by government, solar panels installed on every roof, greenhouse gases traded with governments subsidising pollution and worst of all every child with their own laptop. Where will it all end? | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 03/17/09 - Them's fightin words? Ziggy Switkowski has made an interesting statement in the context of nuclear energy and the future.
"If the Prime Minister claims to be a national leader, he should acknowledge what he already knows."
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,24882067-11949,00.html
Now we know Krudd claims to be a national leader but I wonder, will we get the usual poly speak for which he has become famous in response to this? We will, no doubt, be given a lecture on the evils of nuclear energy and the efficacy of a greenhouse gas abatement trading scheme, and opposition truculence, but the reality is these are not competing alternatives unless Krudd intends to bring in a 0 tolerance to carbon emissions and thus far he has shown no intention of doing that. No, 2020 is not in his plans, 2012 will be a big enough nut to crack and with current plans 2012 will be business as usual. paraclete answered on 03/17/09:Krudd, incidential national leader, he spends more time overseas than he spends here. He drops in to see how that human dynamo Julia is doing, wearing her many hats, as well as running the country while he is away. The parliamentary session is about to end and Krudd will fly-de-coup as they say.
Krudd will not do anything adventurous like nuclear energy, he wants to keep a close grip on the faithful, the true believers, who don't want a bar of anything that might upset our traditional industries. No jobs for the boys in nuclear, you need a degree, at least, to work there. Our politics is conditioned to think only of the current term so 2012 is about as far thinking as we can get. Krudd knows he must get reelected before the Greenhouse Gas Abatement bites the bum of the average punter, this is why he is pouring so much mullah into their coffers at the moment.
Let us ask for a moment, what does Krudd know? He knows that Greenhouse Gas Abatement is the most costly scheme any governmant could impose on the economy. Any new industries which might mitigate the cost and the impact are far away, in that time when he may no longer be in government.
He knows that to transport nuclear material from where it is dug out of the ground to anywhere on this continent is likely to bring forth the demonstrators and require him to overturn the local bans on transport that have been in place for yonks. There is nothing more likely to alienate the electorate than nuclear in my backyard, so it stays in the political too hard basket.
He knows that local nuclear means more mines in sensitive places where sacred sites and aboriginal populations can hold up development for decades. Gone are the days when governemnt can ignore aboriginal rights particularly when you have given them back the land. He knows there is nowhere to bury the waste
In a nutshell Krudd knows it can't be done, least of all by him. | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 03/02/09 - All is not well in Camelot http://www.smh.com.au/world/talkback-king-leads-backlash-to-obama-20090302-8mew.html
Seems the gloss has gone off Obama's armour now that he is raising taxes and the barbarians represented by the republicans are out to get him. So much for his one hundred days in the sun. How dare he suggest that those who caused the crash bear some of the pain of fixing it? paraclete answered on 03/03/09:When you loose an election all you have left is to critize the one who won.
All this would be very amusing if it weren't so serious. Here we have have the people who are most affected by the GFC squabbling like spoilt children instead of focusing on the real issues.
There is a lot of financial pain still to be felt. AIG said it well they have a $600 billion portfolio, so you ain't seen nothing yet. There must be many financial institutions out there who are yet to fully come to grips with how much is lost. We can expect more bad results in the future even when things seem to improve. You must retain perspective. Much of the losses arn't realised losses, but losses in valuation. They haven't become cash flow yet, but they might. | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 03/02/09 - Why are people so bad in the USA? It has been revealed that the US has the highest prison population in the world and the only other developed nation that comes even close is Russia.
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/law/research/icps/downloads/world-prison-pop-seventh.pdf
This begs the question; how can a country which claims to be the champion of freedom and human rights have 25% of the world's prisoners.
What is so bad about American lifestyle that it lands such a high percentage of the population in jail? Nor is the problem evident in the US close neighbours. For the US to have more prisoners than Russia it must be a very repressive regime indeed. One can only conclude that as people are pretty much the same everywhere it must be the socio-political system which creates the laws under which the people are imprisoned which is at fault.
Clean up your act america because we don't want this exported to us paraclete answered on 03/03/09:Mat you can't say they are bad. Where is your PC? Some one said they had truth in sentencing in the US or some such, since we followed them down that road we have had to build more prisons too.
Notice how quickly they are able to stick their head in the sand and blame others for the problem or say others arn't hard enough. Yes minorities are a problem there, they are here too. Over represented in the prison population. That is because they don't respect the laws but maybe locking them up isn't the answer. Here's a novel view, how about forced education. If you have to do the time you don't get out until you get educated, get a degree or a trade. That would act as a disincentive to getting caught and might change the climate for those who are released. | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 03/03/09 - Once again we dodged the bullet? While we have all had our eye on our wallets and the shrinking wealth of the nation a far more significant event took place almost unnoticed. One again we dodged the bullet. When are we going to realise that an ELE is a real possibility and start to become serious about watching the skys and developing a real capability for intervention?
http://www.smh.com.au/national/asteroid-plays-chicken-with-earth-20090303-8nge.html paraclete answered on 03/03/09:Where is the moon when you need it? When you got to go, you got to go. Nothing short of a nuke could have deflected that asteroid. It's time for us to realise we don't control our environment, not any part of it and when an "ELE" comes by we will have little if any warning. Now if this had happened in the northern hemisphere there would have been banner headlines
It is interesting to note how bright they said the object became. Is that just the sun shinning on it or was it a little closer than they are telling us? | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 02/28/09 - The Iraq withdrawal Under the terms of the deal that President Bush negotiated ;and the Iraqi's agreed to in November all American troops are to leave Iraq by the end of 2011 .
Yesterday President Obama announced his long awaited Plan that he would withdraw combat troops and will leave behind up to 50,000 non-combat troops by 2012. He will take credit for ending the war. He is wrong.
The reason all this is possible is because President Bush defied pressure to surrender when combat was still ongoing and things did not look good . Instead he authorized implementation of the Petraeus plan ;the surge .
Yesterday President Obama proclaimed to the Marines at Lejeune "Today I've come to speak to you about how the war in Iraq will end."
But by all measure the war has been over for months now. Obama's plan is really, in most respects, Bush's policy. To the extent that he plans on leaving troops behind in a non-combat role ;I fully support him. Like Europe and Korea before ;victory must be preserved . It will not be an occupation ,but a security treaty between two allies.
Some on the internet proclaimed Victory in Iraq Day as November 22 . Hopefully NYC will host a ticker tape parade to honor our returning troops.
paraclete answered on 03/01/09:leave Iraq, Obama has no intention of pulling out the troops entirely. Why is it that Americans think Iraq needs them? | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 02/19/09 - Today in Australian history Most Americans don't know the significance of this date but in Australia this is a the anniversary of a day that lives in infamy .
Ten weeks after Pearl Harbour at 9.58am on February 19,1942 the very same Japanese naval attack taskforce bombed Australia for the first time.
In fact it was the very first time that Australia had every been attacked in its history.
More ships were sunk, more bombs were dropped and more civilians died in Darwin, the Northern Terrority, than earlier at Pearl Harbour.
The man who had led the attack on Pearl Harbour, Mitsuo Fuchida, was in command of this first attack on Darwin. It had been launched from four carriers, Akagi, Soryu, Hiryu and Kaga, about 500km to the northwest.
The US destroyer Peary was sunk with the loss of 80 lives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Darwin_(February_1942)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/19/2495794.htm paraclete answered on 02/21/09:Thanks for thinking of us Tom and at at time when a disaster of similar proportions has just affected the nation. The far off days of WWII have faded, as the nation faces real and immediate threats, an enemy ever with us ready to strike at a moment's inattention. I wonder what my son thinks as he sits in Darwin and views the Victoria fires from afar, Does he still awake in the night with visions of another fire and the trauma of a desolate landscape he experienced as a child. I would not doubt that such memories remain for the few who defended Darwin in those dark days when the whole of Australia waited for the Japs to come. Such was never a prospect for the US who knew that Japan could never risk an attack on the continential US, wishing to send a message to the US to stay out of the pacific.
We must all learn the lessons of Pearl Harbor and Darwin, of 9/11, and even of Victoria. The enemy is always just over the horizon, we never know what form he will take but he is there | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 02/02/09 - Neo-liberalism is dead? It seems that yet another politician has decided that the debate is over. In his recent dissertation Mr Krudd has decided that neo-liberalism is dead
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/gerard-henderson/rudd-neoliberal-with-the-facts/2009/02/02/1233423132293.html
What I have to say is it is going to take more than asperational comments from Rudd who stayed home from Davos to polish and deliver his oration to kill off rampant greed on Wall Street. I personally like the idea, I think floated by Obama, that no CEO should be paid more than the President, that would take down some US high flyers, and if applied in Australia would certainly send a few imported CEO's back where they came from, which considering the damage done here wouldn't be too soon.
One wonders what comes after neo-liberalism, If one listens to Rudd it is neo-interventalism, a system in which government intervenes to smooth out the bumps in the cycle. In fact, I think Keven would elimate the bumps in the cycle. Boring, Mr Rudd, Boring, and it smacks just a little of the controlled economies of the soviet era. I think you may have learned a little too much from your stay in China
So what should the post finacial debacle of the early twenty-first century look like?
A tightly regulated banking sector?
Free spending governments poring your money into "infrastructure" with every second worker in construction?
Monolithic national projects building railways thru nowhere to nowhere, thermal generation and solar generation in the vast interior, has the snowy project taught no one any lessons?
Social engineering programs like insulation of every house? every student with a computer and a volunteer job at the end of university? high speed broadband in every home? homes for the homeless? hospitals in federal hands? the nationalisation of the Murray-Darling river system?
paraclete answered on 02/03/09:What do you want from the boy? he is just a simple country lad and a queenslander to boot.
It seems we are destined to try everything that everyone else tries including the americans and destined to see the same spectacular failures. Our big bailout, courtesy of Kyoto Kev, in December, was a fizzer, no real improvement in retail sales and a big investment in gambling. If the statistics are to be believed at least $8b disappeared in savings and repayment of existing debt, or is it that the recession in retail was already here and all Kev did was hold up the numbers for one more month and with bank deposits guaranteed, give people some money to put in a safe place.
Next, we are going to see investment in inferstructure as if we have, as the yanks say, many shovel ready projects just waiting for a handout. The reality is we don't, so this initiative will take longer as well any investment in renewables.
If Kev wants to give the motor industry a boost he should immediately announce the replacement of all commonwealth vehicles with new environmentally friendly models, locally produced, of course. This will benefit both the motor industry and the steel industry, cushioning them against rising protectionism. I wonder what happened to the fleet of patrol boats promised by the Labor Party in far off days. No better time to build them, Kev, and recruit all those now unemployed workers in operating them. A complete review of aboriginal housing should give the opportunity to rebuild many communities and train the aboriginals at the same time, a learning on the job scheme which strangely they haven't thought of yet, such communities could be provided with renewable energy in the form of wind and solar solving some other problems, come on Kev, stop writing tripe and start doing something meaningful. I think there are a few outback roads that could do with a tar surface and no shortage of local labour, now is the time to hard surface every road in Australia | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 01/28/09 - More KRUDD from Mr. Rudd? The latest in our unique way of dealing with the economic crisis and all that.
recruit volunteers from those who have a HECS (Higher Education Loans for the unitiatiated on the other side of the pond) debt. Kev's move to the right.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24973793-5000540,00.html
In an extraordinary display of generosity Kyoto Kev is going to let young graduates work off their HECS debt, so now they have choice, do extra in low paid meniel jobs or get a real job and pay it off the usual way. I expect this is Kev's way of recognising two things, welfare agencies need help and well trained youth are the ones to give it to them, and, with economic downturn, all these bright young minds arn't going to be returning their loans to the government coffers anyway.
So says Kev, we won't give the welfare agencies extra money to deal with the crisis, we will give them workers paid in a new currency; HECS. I have one word for this initiative; KRUDD!!!! This is a very cynical exercise, because this initiative represents no new spending, just a accounting exercise juggling the figures. The money has already been spent, it came out of the budgets of the last few years. I wonder what small L young Liberal recent graduate in the Treasury came up with this one, because it certainly doesn't smell like Labor.
What an incentive to the new crop of uni students, you can pay off your loans doing low paid work, and we will even show how much we recognise your effort by saying you are a volunteer. I expect it is a short step to making it compulsory that all outstanding debt be acquited this way if it isn't acquited by actual earnings. This is cloaked step in getting free university education for the masses past an unreceptive Senate. Hawkie eat your heart out.
I haven't researched it but such a program would do credit to the Germany of the 1930's, I expect Krudd will propose the "joy through work" program soon. paraclete answered on 01/28/09:Kev's certainly trying hard, perhaps too hard.
It seems Rees will insist our Kids in NSW get an education with a hike in the leaving age and Kev will see they get employment one way or another. It seems it's a big day for the young ones with many changes in the wind.
But Kev's missed the boat he should have seized the opportunity to put all the layabouts to work with a plan of enforced training for anyone who cannot find employment, heavens knows all those abos need training in planting trees and all the others need training in mowing the grass and keeping the place tidy. In a short time we could have a clean green Australia. | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 01/27/09 - Is it too late? People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide the climate would go back to normal in 100 years, 200 year - that's not true
Susan Solomon Lead author
Scientists now say we cannot reverse the effects of our lifestyle on the environment, in other words the effect is our of our control.
Global warming is 'irreversible'
Politicians must offset damage from man-made pollution, the report says
A team of environmental researchers in the US has warned many effects of climate change are irreversible.
The scientists concluded global temperatures could remain high for 1,000 years, even if carbon emissions can somehow be halted.
Their report was sponsored by the US Department of Energy and comes as President Obama announces a review of vehicle emission standards.
It appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The scientists have been researching global warming and the consequences for policymakers.
The team warned that, if carbon levels in the atmosphere continued to rise, there would be less rainfall in already dry areas of southern Europe, North America, parts of Africa and Australia.
The scientists say the oceans are currently slowing down global warming by absorbing heat, but they will eventually release that heat back into the air.
They say politicians must now offset environmental damage already done by man-made pollution.
"People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide the climate would go back to normal in 100 years, 200 year - that's not true," said researcher Susan Solomon, the lead author of the report, quoted by AP news agency.
Their conclusions come as President Obama ordered the US Environmental Protection Agency to review rules on carbon emissions from passenger vehicles.
paraclete answered on 01/27/09:At last someone is prepared to say what we need to know. No amount of economic pain is going to change the future of our grandchildren in regard to climate change but it will mean their quality of life may be lessened for little purpose.
This also tells us what hasn't been said, The only way out of the problem is to lessen human activity significantly and the only way to do that is significant population reduction. It's a difficult pill to swallow but the nations of the world can no longer be allowed to breed like rabbits and expect that they can have the benefits of advanced technology and life style.
Rather than licensing carbon dioxide emissions, and trading those, what we need is a human breeding trading system where licenses to breed can be traded and only those who can demonstrate their ability to support their offspring and not add to pollution and poverty, etc can be licensed. It's radical and reeks of nazism but such a solution will ultimately be proposed.
The world can no longer afford out of control population growth any more that it can afford out of control growth in emmissions. The two are linked in such a way that any movement in one parallels the other. In order to curb consumption it is necessary to curb consumers. Why have the governments of the world not seen this?
Just as we cannot afford to bring every individual in the world up to the standards of the most advanced societies, we cannot afford society to continue to grow unchecked. The threat isn't climate change, it is population growth. As population has risen, so have carbon emmission and industrial growth.
The Kyoto protocal was a failure, not because it sought to limit emmissions to 1990 levels but becuase it didn't also seek to limit other growth factors such as population and industrialisation. We have enough factories, enough electricity generators what we need to do is limit the one thing that requires we build more. | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 01/21/09 - cooling = warming? Antarctica is melting
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24946650-401,00.html
this is of course contrary to the pundits who say it is cooling. Well it appears it depends where you take your measurements but taken as a whole it is melting. So much for the Planet is cooling brigade and guess who is stationed in the part that is cooling. Another case of if it isn't happening to the Americans, it isn't happening. They should change the name of that place to Ostrichvillia. What we might get is a smaller, colder, Antarctica but that is just my take on the news, it says nothing about the early onset of coastal flooding paraclete answered on 01/22/09:yes Antarctica is melting and getting smaller and as a result there will be higher seas and some interesting parts of the world will be under water, not to mention the habitat of many millions of humans. Those climate refugees will swell the ranks of the economic refugees looking for relocation in places like North America and Europe who are going to have plenty of their own problems it's goodbye Holland and South Vietnam.
Here is an interesting site where you can see the effect
http://flood.firetree.net/ | | Question/Answer | | dublin40 asked on 01/16/09 - Harry Truman's U.S. army pension We know that Pres. Truman was in the army during WW1. Why did he receive an army pension of $13.507.72 per year?
Thank you paraclete answered on 01/21/09:There are bigger question to ask about Truman than the size of his army pension. Where did you get this interesting piece of trivia? | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 12/22/08 - not in my backyard The UK Telegraph reported "the wind farm industry has been forced to admit that the environmental benefit of wind power in reducing carbon emissions is only half as big as it had previously claimed."
The British Wind Energy Association has admitted to cooking the books on its calculations of the amount of carbon dioxide displaced by wind power. According to the report a wind farm industry source offered this bizarre excuse for the inaccurate figures:
"It's not ideal for us. It's the result of pressure by the anti-wind farm lobby."
It's the fault of the anti-wind lobby that the wind farm industry has been forced to tell the truth? Shame on those pro-pollution Neanderthals.
So how many windmills does it take to save the planet? (Or at least to make the "greens" on the tiny island of Britain feel good about themselves?) A lot.
Experts have previously calculated that to help achieve the Government's aim of saving around 200 million tons of CO2 emissions by 2020 - through generating 15 per cent of the country's electricity from wind power - would require 50,000 wind turbines.
But the new figure for carbon displacement means that twice as many turbines would now be needed to save the same amount of CO2 emissions.
That's at least 100,000 windmills to minimally reduce CO2 emissions. (All of these numbers assume, of course, that there is some wind to mill.) Picture it: a hundred thousand windmills doting the island. Should be a real boon for tourism.
ObamaNation wants to build a few windmills in America. Electrical generation in the United States releases just under 3 billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year. To reduce the amount of CO2 by just 10% would require at least 150,000 windmills.
paraclete answered on 12/23/08:apparently they even count the emissions in imported goods over there, under their system you could never get ahead and China and India get big credits for exporting.
I think they need to get with the program and worry about their own emissions. This whole thing is a nonsense, if a country does well and its exports rise so do its emissions so they have to work harder to offset this, If you are going to count emissions in imports too, it becomes ridiculous. There is an answer, turn out the lights | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 12/17/08 - The slight of hand in emission statistics? We cannot but wonder at why governments continue to quote emission reductions against 1990 benchmarks. In fact, this is slight of hand intended to conceal exactly how much pain will be inflicted on the average punter. Australia's declaration of a 5% reduction against 1990 benchmarks mean a reduction in average individual emissions of 34-41% it was revealed today. No modest reduction this but the most ambitious plan thus far, far exceeding any proposal in the EU or US to date.
What are we, a bunch of fools? More KRUDD and the greenies have the gaul to ask for more or they will migrate to Europe, well I say go. To paraphrase a well known phrase from Australian politics; well might we say God save the planet, because nothing will save the Barrier Reef. (Apologies to Gough Whitlam and the constitutional crisis of 1975). I see the Labor Party setting its-self up for another dismissal. If the opposition is true to its colours, this legislation is doomed. It is hardly the balanced approach suggested but the destruction of a successful economy for no reason paraclete answered on 12/22/08:Of course we are fools, we are being talked into leading the way so KRUDD can strut the world stage and demonstrate how he has done more, when his stint at PM is over there is always Gen-Secretary of the UN to aspire too, where else would a career diplomat look to.
No one wants to talk about how much this all means in reduction of present levels, they all talk about a past benchmark which is meaningless to much of the population of the Earth who weren't even born then. The world has moved on, 1990 is a long time ago, and the realities are; keeping to the Kyoto targets is very difficult with a growing population, let alone reductions on the scale that are being suggested.
I have lived in a country where power is available for 50% of the day, I have no interest to returning to that third world life style but in reality that is what these reduction targets mean, not a lifting of the third world to first world standards but a reduction of the first world to third world standards.
We have the ability to change the way we do things but this is generational change, not something to be implemented tomorrow. We should look to building nuclear power stations, this curbs CO2 emissions and the nuclear waste is not an insurmountable problem, shoot it into the sun if needs be. But right now we are paralysed by the greenies who throw up an environmental issue to every solution. Ok some solutions are a not a net sum gain, such as ethanol,it makes no sense to turn corn into fuel while starvation exists in the world.
So yes the statistics are flawed and being used to hide the real issue, the pain we are all going to feel
| | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 12/20/08 - The absolute failure of a stimulus package? http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/what-financial-crisis/2008/12/20/1229189947520.html
Just weeks after the $10.4B stimulus package was announced with the injunction for all who recieved it to spend it to stave off a slump it must be counted as an abject failure when retailers expect a modest $700 million increase in sales. So where have the billions gone? Perhaps they have been squirreled away for the post Christmas sales or perhaps common sense has prevailed and the bonus has been used wisely to reduce debt or catch up on the rent/mortgage. What ever has been done with it, it hasn't given the stimulus sought. Another failed economic policy, spend for security from a government with few real ideas.
Please Mr. Rudd, no more Krudd like this. Stop spending like a man with no arms and start stimulating the industries which can pull us out of recession. The industries that don't rely on imported content Building, Medicine, Education, Charities, Agriculture, Infrastructure but please no more quickie failures? paraclete answered on 12/22/08:Well what did you expect? radical ideas from a Labor politician. The unions have him by the proverbials and everything he does will be to "protect" jobs, as if this country hasn't seen unemployment before. I remember another Labor politician, skumbag Keating and the recession we had to have. He led us into the banana republic and KRUDD will make sure we stay there.
It won't be long before we see more industry restructuring, I expect the motor industry to be moved off shore or amalgamated in the interests of producing an environmentally friendly car, appropriately christened the KEV, perhaps a new "Commonwealth" bank to protect the workers savings and superannuation, a national rail corporation, oh sorry, we already have one of those, national hospitals administration, a new national broadband network owned by the government, a national aboriginal housing authority and of course we have the newly announced but as yet unnamed national homeless accommodation authority and protection for landlords in the mandatory Centrelink payment of rents for the government's unfortunate clients | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 12/16/08 - Capitalism in action? inverstors including the largest banks have lost $50 Bil in a scam. Now you would have thought there was some sort of prudential regulation that prevented this sort of thing at least for financial institutions, it proves there is one born every day and most of them are rich, and there are actually people who think that there shouldn't be regulation. Well I think the american taxpayer can foot the bill for this one too, how about you? paraclete answered on 12/16/08:Yes this is capitalism in action, caveat emptor, and obviously very few were cautious. So I don't get it, a scheme like this can be illegal but be run for decades without anyone realising they have been had.
It shows you that BS rules | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 12/15/08 - KRudd, KRudd and more KRUDD? Australia's feeble attempt to deal with climate change by setting "unconditional" targets conditional upon the world doing better is sort of like holding a dutch auction. The "we will if you will" approach has been shown to be a failure. We will reduce emissions by 15% if you will do better otherwise we will reduce by 5% but this is not conditional, so 5% it is. To be fair 5% below 1990 is a long way below where we are now but we have no weapons in our arsenal to even make 5% realistic, we will not use nuclear to reach the target, the greenies will not allow us to build dams so hydro is out even if we had the water, the wind doesn't blow very strongly so wind is a weak solution and that leaves solar, a very expensive and some what polluting alternative (silicon refining is a heavy polluter). There is plenty of opportunity for wave and hot rocks but it just doesn't capture the imagination so pumping coal fired generation emissions underground is all we have. Krudd, save our money and demand electric vehicles now, at least we will make environmentally friendly use of the electricity generated paraclete answered on 12/15/08:I don't know what you expect, nothing we do will have any impact on global emissions, so whether we reduce by 5%, 15%, 50% or 100%, two-pennith of nothing is still nothing. I think the penny has finally dropped and Krudd has done a Howard and realised that it is all a waste of time, energy and money and he has more important things to do.
Now while this may be true of Australia, and some other small nations, the same isn't true of the major polluters, USA, Russia, China and soon to be India as well as the old players in the game. It's easy to reduce emissions, we did it years ago, we just did it too soon for it to count. You shut down your manufacturing industries and get some cheap labour to do the job for you. All the pollution goes somewhereelse and you meet your targets, all you have to do is sell them some minerals and buy back the finished product or some of it.
Just when they thing everything is great you pull the rug out from under them and start up the industries somewhereelse. It's a real shame that the next place for startup with cheap labour just isn't politically stable.
Mr Krudd has the right idea, put your resources into making it easier to export the pollution, so now we will have better railways to our export ports so we can sell more coal to the world | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 12/12/08 - How do you stimulate an economy? Do you do it by plowing money into infrastructure projects with uncertain start dates, sounds like grandstanding to me! Do you do it by allowing business to defer tax payments? More grandstanding!
Do you do it by loaning money to institutions which continue to announce massive job cuts?
No you cannot stimulate an economy doing any of these things because they do nothing to provide certainty about the future.
What I ask is why can't politicians see that this isn't the time for grandstand gestures? paraclete answered on 12/12/08:No, slick, you do it by boondoggling but boondoggling takes too long, what we need now are potholes filled, roads resurfaced, verges mown, rocks painted and moved about,parks planted; anything that can keep anyone without a job in work. If we happen to widen a few roads and bridges and relay some track that would be good too.
The days are gone when rural work could absorb a city out of work but I hear fruit pickers are still in great demand. I vote we send all those hangers on in the form of refugees back where they came from, that should free up the job market and stimulate the airline industry which has some empty seats, it will also free up the rental market. This is an ideal time to tackle climate change by replanting trees, there are huge tracks of land which are no longer viable for farming, so why not stimulate the economy by replanting them with trees; this reduces carbon di-oxide and provides employment and the carbon credits can be sold to fund the exercise, a win-win scenario.
You expect politicians to actually contribute something but in reality they are just being fed more of the same by public servants, the programs don't change much regime to regime, just emphasis so unless we get some radical ideas we all go down the gurgler together | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 12/11/08 - God and bad economic policy? when journalists write of government's bold new stimulus package, they look no further than the visible benefits and ignore the hidden costs. If a bridge it to be built, construction workers and steelmakers will no doubt benefit But there are hidden costs. In this new eeconomic environment we see a rush to promote infrastructure projects what are the consequences? The price of steel and construction wages will be higher, discouraging private investment. If the funds are to be borrowed in the marketplace, that will restrict funds available for private investment. And what will happen to unemployment when the infrastructure is completed?
The key to recovery is sustainable investment — not temporary jobs.
A further example of this was a stimulus package given to the solar industry by the Australian government created a boom in the industry, but change of government and change of policy has seen the industry going from boom to bust, where will the skilled workers be when the government again decides to turn on the tap as part of their new stimulus package, working on another infrastructure project?
Welfare Spending
If you give a man a fish he will have a single meal.
If you teach him how to fish, he will eat all his life.
~ Kuan-tzu, Taoist philospher (7th century BC).
comments?
paraclete answered on 12/11/08:With this sort of thinking no one would do anything, sort of paralysis by analysis.
Yes I agree the Australian government's attempt to stimulate the economy by giving money to low income people is a deeply flawed ploy carried out without thinking but infrastructure projects take months and years to produce any impact.
If governments want to stimulate the economy they could start by replacing their vehicle fleet immediately, replacing rolling stock on railways, replacing PC and equipment in schools and government offices, recruiting into the armed forces, subsidising housing construction for the low income rental market, stimulating local tourism and mandating that no organisation that takes government assistance or government contracts can cut back on employment | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 12/02/08 - Alinsky community organizing goes international http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24738950-5006786,00.html
Protesters have swarmed the Gold Coast City Council headquarters, and with blaring rock anthems vented anger over a planned Muslim school.
Almost 200 residents turned out for the demonstration, draped in Australian flags and shouting pro-Aussie slogans while Australian rock classics such as Down Under and Great Southern Land boomed across the parkland, The Courier-Mail reports.
Australian International Islamic College, planned for Carrara, has raised the ire of residents who fear it will lead to the local Muslim population withdrawing from the rest of the community. A rally last week attracted about 400 people, while people turned out yesterday carrying placards bearing slogans such as “no Muslim school, hell no†and “integration, not segregationâ€. Resident’s spokesman Tony Doherty said Muslim schools did not encourage multiculturalism. “It’s segregation, not integration,†he said.
lol
The interesting thing is their use of the terms “segregation†and “multiculturalism†to oppose the school.
Saul Alinksy ;the spiritual mentor of President-elect Barack Hussein Obama once wrote that you can beat the Establishment to death with their own book of rules. Now that the libs are the Establishment the lesson still holds.
In the name of diverity they have opened their tent to all types of special interest groups....militant gays,radical muslims, feminists, latte sucking atheists etc. As we saw in the primary contest between OB1 and Evita Clintoon it is a fragile alliance indeed that almost fractured because their various special interests conflict. Once in power they turn on each other . It will happen here in the US also.
paraclete answered on 12/02/08:I think these things need to be seen in a broader context, Just because some thing happens in Australia doesn't mean it will reproduce in the US or vise versa. Australia is a liberal democratic society not often given to extreme conservatism. the word liberal here doesn't mean socialist as it does in the US, however Muslims have proved difficult because of failure to integrate and assimilate
Muslims schools are being opposed all over Australia whereever they are proposed. This is because the Muslims typically attempt to establish these schools in greenfields sites where there is no Muslim community and therefore no community of interest. In Australia the federal government subsidise non state schools in order to promote choice so a lucrative financial incentive exists for Muslims to attempt to establish schools. If this incentive did not exist they would not do it. The Australian community doesn't welcome Muslims because it sees their presence as a watering down of the basic tenets of established law and ethos which is based on Judeo/Christian values and British common law. We don't want Sharia Law and we will not cave in to these interests as the British have done. Take your lesson from what happens elsewhere. Europe is being overrun by these people who become a new underclass with all its attendant problems | | Question/Answer | | ken123 asked on 10/15/08 - Dictators Can someone please explain how a dictator with records of human rights violations, such as Papa Doc Duvalier, can seek refuge in other countries with impunity (France in this case)? Thanks paraclete answered on 10/19/08:Papa Doc did not seek refuge in France you refer to Jean-Claude Duvalier (nicknamed Bébé Doc or Baby Doc. Although he moved to France it was not with total impunity.
There are instances where countries will offer refuge to a leader who is deposed because they have ruled a client state or as an expedient to resolve a situation. George Bush made such an offer to Saddam Hussein before launching the Gulf war attack, he offered Hussein the opportunity to leave to avoid the attack. Whether Hussein had somewhere safe to go, Syria or Russia is not clear
Duvalier had not committed an offense in France and so was accepted to enter the country. It is often the case that Presidents have immunity from prosecution for acts committed while in office and it takes prosecution in an international court to overturn this. Remember money opens many doors | | Question/Answer | | Mary_Susan asked on 08/13/08 - Another Bush Gigantic Failure-Russia Yet, only a few months to go in a disastrous Presidency, and we see the results of Bush's blundering in foreign relations with the advent of Russia's bombing and invasion of Georgia.
Remember how Bush looked into Putin's eyes and saw a man he could work with??!! BWAH HA HA HA
Bush even has Condolezza as a top aid and Secretary of State...she, an academic EXPERT IN RUSSIA and they just ignored Russia.
I wonder if they are going to leave the problems to Dr. Strangelove-McCain?????
What a nightmare of a presidency!!!
NO MORE YEARS OF TRAGIC LEADERSHIP FROM REPUBS!!! paraclete answered on 08/14/08:I think you expect too much from that down home texas boy, he is just not equal to the task | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 08/09/08 - HELLO: Good morning guys and gals. HANK is back. I've noticed that there's a lack of activity on this Board. Let's get the ball rollin', especially since there's so much going on in the political stream that's flowing sideways, upwards and downwards. No happy medium presently.
HANK paraclete answered on 08/13/08:Hank Panky, you're back. Does this mean golf has lost its allure? I expect there are only so many balls you can hit at your age.
So which of the new campaigners have you sided with. McPain or o-BAM-a? one sounds like a hamburger and the other a southern state, perhaps they will meet in the middle and we will have KFC.
As to things political flowin, it's all down hill from here | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 08/12/08 - War Protesters ...where are they now ? So where are those hundreds of thousands of anti-war protesters ? Shouldn't they be on the streets protesting in Europe ;and the United States over the illegal war of aggression being conducted by Russia against Georgia ? Where are the burning Russian flags and paper mache Putins hanging in effigee ?
The Great Victor Davis Hanson has a brilliant observation :
The Russians have sized up the moral bankruptcy of the Western Left. They know that half-a-million Europeans would turn out to damn their patron the United States for removing a dictator and fostering democracy, but not more than a half-dozen would do the same to criticize their long-time enemy from bombing a constitutional state.
The Russians rightly expect Westerners to turn on themselves, rather than Moscow — and they won’t be disappointed. Imagine the morally equivalent fodder for liberal lament: We were unilateral in Iraq, so we can’t say Russia can’t do the same to Georgia. (As if removing a genocidal dictator is the same as attacking a democracy). We accepted Kosovo’s independence, so why not Ossetia’s? (As if the recent history of Serbia is analogous to Georgia’s.) We are still captive to neo-con fantasies about democracy, and so encouraged Georgia’s efforts that provoked the otherwise reasonable Russians (As if the problem in Ossetia is our principled support for democracy rather than appeasement of Russian dictatorship).
From what the Russians learned of the Western reaction to Iraq, they expect their best apologists will be American politicians, pundits, professors, and essayists — and once more they will not be disappointed. We are a culture, after all, that after damning Iraqi democracy as too violent, broke, and disorganized, is now damning Iraqi democracy as too conniving, rich, and self-interested — the only common denominator being whatever we do, and whomever we help, cannot be good.
paraclete answered on 08/12/08:At least the americans for whatever reason are protesting the russian methods, we shall see what comes of this but america doesn't need another Iraq or Afganistan and Georgia could quickly become that. Geographically Georgia is in a difficult position for the US because to help them the US must draw others into the action. Its not a great idea to go play in Russia's sandbox | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 08/10/08 - Iraq & Afghanistan:
Something has been buggin' me for some years now. I would like to know if anyone in our government took the time to analyze the mind-set of the Muslims BEFORE we bombed IRAQ and AFGANISTAN. As we now know, the Muslims are destined to kill everyone who doesn't conform to their religion. We now know the Muslims knew about guerilla warfare. It seems to me that those powers-that-be were very naive about both.
Let me hear from you. Thanks.
HANK
paraclete answered on 08/12/08:My views on Muslims and the brain dead american administration are well known Hank. This is very old news and you should be thinking on how to extract yourselves from a very difficult situation, No power since Alexander the Great has been known to conquer Afganistan, as far as Iraq is concerned every power known to man has managed to conquer the place in short order except the americans. What does this say about american methods? | | Question/Answer | | Mary_Susan asked on 07/03/08 - What is the *Real* Reason?? ...that fundi/Ev Christians reject the climate crisis?
What is the reason? paraclete answered on 07/09/08:I think you have stuck that label on me in the past and you well know that I have not rejected climate change as an observable event so why don't you be specific and ask why Bush a professed Christian rejects climate change and I would say that it is the love of money which prevents him from seeing reality.
Doing something tangible about climate change is going to cost and it is going to cost those who have most to lose the most. Oil has to go as an energy source, coal has to go as an energy source and any nation which has a carbon based economy and that is your nation, my nation and most of the world is in big trouble economically when it tries to address the changes that are necessary. It is politically unpalitable because there is nowhere vested interest can do something for the folks back home. Look at what they have done already, forced up the price of corn by converting food stuff to fuel, what idiots! Now if they had taken an over subsidised sugar industry and converted that to fuel you might have seen some sense but that would have taken that industry out of the trough. No votes there.
Old T-bone may have had a good suggestion the other day but that solution only works for a few and it is still a carbon based solution.
So stop ranting about the fundies and start to see that this isn't a faith issue, it's a life style issue. The SUV has to go, the holidays abroad have to go, the rabid consumerism has to go, the population growth has to go and if we can't solve the problem the planet will solve it for us.
people are a virus an infection and for planet Earth the infection is terminal | | Question/Answer | | arcura asked on 07/03/08 - Did you know that there are massive volcanoes under the ice? This might blow your mind the more you think about it.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,374542,00.html
paraclete answered on 07/07/08:Fred we know global warming is a conspiracy aimed at the United States. We all want you to consume less, based on the size of your waste lines this is not an unreasonable request
What we suggest is this, down size McDonalds so that when some one asks for a burger that's what they get nothing else that should reduce the green house gases in north america by half
There are many volcanoes on the face of the earth Fred and have been for many centuries, from the statistics these did not add to the carbon diooxide sufficiently to cause Global warming and they certainly are no melting the glaciers.
I personally will be glad to see the demise of the SUV I cannot think of a more stupid use of such vehicles as urban transport and who led us into this stupidity; the north americans
You will get what you deserve, you reap what you sow. | | Question/Answer | | arcura asked on 06/23/08 - Have you heard, global warming is a proven fraud. Proven by an overwhelming number of scientists.
Many times more than those few who make the claim of global warming.
Look here......
http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/19842304.html paraclete answered on 06/23/08:Ok Fred let's review a few facts that this person puts forward. Smog, so he thinks the problem is beaten, obviously he has not been to China or the other growing economies in Asia. Smog from vehicle and factory emissions is a serious problem in these places. So serious that sunlight is a rare commodity. What I suggest is that the US has succeeded in exporting its problem, not solved the problem.
Carbon dioxide as a trace element. To suggest that because its concentration is small in relative terms it cannot have an undesirable effect is false logic, the undesirable effect is a general warming and to suggest that a short term sun spot cycle in recess is a long term offset permitting continued pollution is an attitude worthy of a trogladite.
Gore (and others) has demonstrated a correlation between rising concentrations of carbon dio-oxide and a rise in average temperatures which far outstrips other known reasons. To suggest otherwise is suggest that the sun will not rise tomorrow. Whether the conclusions drawn are correct is a horse of a different colour. Sea levels are rising, since the supply of water is finite, this leads to the conclusion either ice caps are melting or sea temperature is rising. There appears to be evidence of both. There is wide spread glacial melting and sun spot activity cannot be the explanation since sun spot activity is a cycle well observed.
So lets not swallow the propaganda of the oil industry whole but realise that change is needed and change is going to cost those who make most use of resources the most. That means both you and I are going to pay more. Do we like it, no. I may even have to buy a car that uses less fuel, is this a bad thing, probably not. | | Question/Answer | | arcura asked on 05/21/08 - Did a long term cooling trend start in 2007? SATELLITE INDICATES 23-YEAR GLOBAL COOLING
May 5, 2008
BY DENNIS T. AVERY
CHURCHVILLE VA—Now it’s not just the sunspots that predict a 23-year global cooling. The new Jason oceanographic satellite shows that 2007 was a “cool†La Nina year—but Jason also says something more important is at work: The much larger and more persistent Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) has turned into its cool phase, telling us to expect moderately lower global temperatures until 2030 or so.
For the past century at least, global temperatures have tended to mirror the 20-to 30-year warmings and coolings of the north-central Pacific Ocean. We don’t know just why, but the pattern of the last century is clear: the earth warmed from about 1915 to1940, while the PDO was also warming (1925 to 46). The earth cooled from 1940 to 1975, while the PDO was cooling (1946 to 1977). The strong global warming from 1976 to 1998 was accompanied by a strong and almost-constant warming of the north-central Pacific. Ancient tree rings in Baja California and Mexico show there have been 11 such PDO shifts since 1650, averaging 23 years on length.
Researchers discovered the PDO only recently—in 1996—while searching for the reason salmon numbers had declined sharply in the Columbia River after 1977. The salmon catch record for the past 100 years gave the answer—shifting Pacific Ocean currents. The PDO favors the salmon from the Columbia for about 25 years at a time, and then the salmon from the Gulf of Alaska, but the two fisheries never thrive at the same time. Something in the PDO favors the early development of the salmon smolts from one region or the other. Other fish, such as halibut, sardines, and anchovies follow similar shifts in line with the PDO.
The PDO seems to be driven by the huge Aleutian Low in the Arctic—but we don’t know what controls the Aleutian Low. Nonetheless, 22.5-year “double sunspot cycles†have been identified. paraclete answered on 05/21/08:Yes Fred the climate change statistics are very interesting. This certainly has been a cooler year, but the southern oscillation index indicates a el nino is back in effect so the drought goes on. If I intrepret the PDO statistics correctly this means the SOI will continue to bring drought to my neck of the woods and the lower temperatures may be short lived as sea temperatures rise off my eastern coast. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
Greenhouse gases continue to rise and although they are only a small percentage of atmospheric gases they appear to be associated with rising temperatures. I expect we will know more if we see more sea ice at the north pole or glaciers beginning to grow again, but the PDO cycle doesn't appear to be tied into the longer term warming trend | | Question/Answer | | arcura asked on 05/17/08 - Do you believe this guy? I think I do. He claims that the USA has more crude oil in the ground that the Arab counties all together do.
Watch and listen to what he says here.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3340274697167011147
paraclete answered on 05/21/08:What the man says is interesting Fred, we know Bush has vested oil interests and that includes benefiting from a rising price, however Lindsay takes an "American" view and fails to recognise that world demand for oil is rising rapidly and this will keep the price high. Bush pushed the Saudi to pump more oil, this may have been a grandstand play. You look to $1.50 an gallon, I would like to see $1.50 a litre again. Until that sort of inequity is redressed, America has no sympathy from me for lower oil costs. It's long past time you felt the same pain the rest of us have to deal with | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 04/13/08 - Another Good Strategy ... but not for us: Why couldn't the insurgents go into hibernation for six months? Our forces would pull out, thinking we won the war. Then the insurgents would clean up Iraq with carnage ... but not American carnage. And another thought: I readily believe that if we have a war with Iran, it will be Earth's FINAL WAR. Religion and politics will be the causes and involve the Jews, Islam and Christianity. When will this happen? In 2009!
Any comments?
Hank
paraclete answered on 04/13/08:Perhaps you would like to tell OBL that one Hank, you have once again demonstrated how much you care. You don't get it, do you? If there are no American troops in Iraq then there is no need for al qaeda in Iraq, they can then concentrate on some other place, like America, isn't that what Bush has been telling you as a justification for staying there. What you suggest is a recipe for carnage in America or perhaps a recipe for the end of that obscene war.
Will it happen in 2009, it might if the Dems win the election, Johnny can come marching home. | | Question/Answer | | arcura asked on 02/13/08 - Have you seen this? Take a look and tell me your opinion of it.
Thanks,
Fred
http://www.hiddenmysteries.org/answers/information/2many.html paraclete answered on 02/15/08:If you would believe that you would believe anything Fred, it's an ad for a bookshop | | Question/Answer | | arcura asked on 02/14/08 - Are you for the Global Poverty act? Can you believe that ANY American would sponsor or vote for a bill like this?
www.NewsWithViews.com
February 13, 2008
New Articles
Obama's Global Tax Proposal Up for Senate Vote
A nice-sounding bill called the “Global Poverty Act,†sponsored by Democratic presidential candidate and Senator Barack Obama, is up for a Senate vote on Thursday and could result in the imposition of a global tax on the United States. The bill, which has the support of many liberal religious groups, makes levels of U.S. foreign aid spending subservient to the dictates of the United Nations.........
http://www.newswithviews.com/Kincaid/cliff207.htm
by Cliff Kincaid paraclete answered on 02/15/08:Hi Fred after looking at the detail I am suprised that any individual in any country would sponsor the content, however well meaning, becuase it signs away soveriegn national rights. However no doubt you would be unaware that there would already be legislation committing your nation, and mine, to follow the dictates of the UN by default. | | Question/Answer | | Mary_Susan asked on 01/11/08 - BUSH'S IDEA OF NAT.ID CARD, CALLED "REAL ID" WASHINGTON (AP) - Residents of at least 17 states are suddenly stuck in the middle of a fight between the Bush administration and state governments over post-Sept. 11 security rules for driver's licenses - a dispute that, by May, could leave millions of people unable to use their licenses to board planes or enter federal buildings.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who was unveiling final details of the REAL ID Act's rules on Friday, said that if states want their licenses to remain valid for air travel after May 2008, those states must seek a waiver indicating they want more time to comply with the legislation.
Chertoff, as he revealed final details of the REAL ID Act, said that in instances where a particular state doesn't seek a waiver, its residents will have to use a passport or a newly created federal passport card if they want to avoid a vigorous secondary screening at airport security.
``The last thing I want to do is punish citizens of a state who would love to have a REAL ID license but can't get one,'' Chertoff said. ``But in the end, the rule is the rule as passed by Congress.''
Chertoff spoke as he discussed the details of the administration's plan to improve security for driver's licenses in all 50 states - an effort delayed due to opposition from states worried about the cost and civil libertarians upset about what they believe are invasions of privacy.
Under the rules announced Friday, Americans born after Dec. 1, 1964, will have to get more secure driver's licenses in the next six years.
The Homeland Security Department has spent years crafting the final regulations for the REAL ID Act, a law designed to make it harder for terrorists, illegal immigrants and con artists to get government-issued identification. The effort once envisioned to take effect in 2008 has been pushed back in the hopes of winning over skeptical state officials.
To address some of those concerns, the government now plans to phase in a secure ID initiative that Congress approved in 2005. Now, DHS plans a key deadline in 2011 - when federal authorities hope all states will be in compliance - and then further measures to be enacted three years later.
To make the plan more appealing to cost-conscious states, federal authorities drastically reduced the expected cost from $14.6 billion to $3.9 billion, a 73 percent decline, said Homeland Security officials familiar with the plan.
The American Civil Liberties Union has fiercely objected to the effort, particularly the sharing of personal data among government agencies. The DHS and other officials say the only way to ensure an ID is safe is to check it against secure government data; critics such as the ACLU say that creates a system that is more likely to be infiltrated and have its personal data pilfered.
In its written objection to the law, the ACLU claims REAL ID amounts to the ``first-ever national identity card system,'' which ``would irreparably damage the fabric of American life.''
The Sept. 11 attacks were the main motivation for the changes.
The hijacker-pilot who flew into the Pentagon, Hani Hanjour, had four driver's licenses and ID cards from three states. The DHS, created in response to the attacks, has created a slogan for REAL ID: ``One driver, one license.''
By 2014, anyone seeking to board an airplane or enter a federal building would have to present a REAL ID-compliant driver's license, with the notable exception of those more than 50 years old, Homeland Security officials said.
The over-50 exemption was created to give states more time to get everyone new licenses, and officials say the risk of someone in that age group being a terrorist, illegal immigrant or con artist is much less. By 2017, even those over 50 must have a REAL ID-compliant card to board a plane.
So far, 17 states have passed legislation or resolutions objecting to the REAL ID Act's provisions, many due to concerns it will cost them too much to comply. The 17, according to the ACLU, are: Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington state.
Among other details of the REAL ID plan:
The traditional driver's license photograph would be taken at the beginning of the application instead of the end so that if someone is rejected for failure to prove identity and citizenship, the applicant's photo would be kept on file and checked if that person tried to con the system again.
The cards will have three layers of security measures but will not contain microchips as some had expected. States will be able to choose from a menu which security measures they will put in their cards.
Over the next year, the government expects all states to begin checking both the Social Security numbers and immigration status of license applicants.
Most states already check Social Security numbers and about half check immigration status. Some, like New York, Virginia, North Carolina and California, have already implemented many of the security measures envisioned in REAL ID. In California, for example, officials expect the only major change to adopt the first phase would be to take the photograph at the beginning of the application process instead of the end.
After the Social Security and immigration status checks become nationwide practice, officials plan to move on to more expansive security checks, including state DMV offices checking with the State Department to verify those applicants who use passports to get a driver's license, verifying birth certificates and checking with other states to ensure an applicant doesn't have more than one license.
A few states have already signed written agreements indicating they plan to comply with REAL ID. Seventeen others, though, have passed legislation or resolutions objecting to it, often because of concerns about the cost of the extra security.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What are your thoughts on this plan involving 50 states??? paraclete answered on 01/15/08:It seems you have a storm in a tea cup over there, or a number of people who have reason to buck the system. We have had a number of such measures in place for years requiring photo ID for bank accounts and drivers licences. The layer of security which requires checks in other states must be cumbersome but you can overcome this by having a national licensing system. What is the problem with an identity card anyway, if you go overseas you have a passport, It can simplify how many cards you have to access Government. I don't get it, if security is an issue why isn't it an issue for everyone | | Question/Answer | | Mary_Susan asked on 01/01/08 - HAPPY NEW YEAR POLITICOS!! Two days to the Iowa Caucus'!
Election year his here. paraclete answered on 01/13/08:this is supposed to be important do you know that 98% of the world arn't interested | | Question/Answer | | Mary_Susan asked on 11/27/07 - Australia, the World's Next Republic?? Australia will be taking a vote due to recent election change to the Liberal Party to change to a Republic and drop the monarchy. The change to a Republic has a lot of support among the citizens.
What do you think??? paraclete answered on 11/27/07:Australia has already taken a vote on being a republic and the move was rejected. There is no advantage to Australia becoming a republic since it's parliamentary democracy is extremely efficient and the only thing that would changed would be the role of head of state. No doubt the matter will be reviewed as it is periodically however the chief proponents are not the now ruling Labor Party but elements of the defeated Liberal Party | | Question/Answer | | Mary_Susan asked on 11/26/07 - It's Official-US Troops in Iraq Indefinitely "So it begins. After years of obfuscation and denial on the length of the U.S.'s stay in Iraq, the White House and the Maliki government have released a joint declaration of "principles" for "friendship and cooperation." Apparently President Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki signed the declaration during a morning teleconference.
Naturally, the declaration is euphemistic, and doesn't refer explicitly to any U.S. military presence.
-- Iraq's leaders have asked for an enduring relationship with America, and we seek an enduring relationship with a democratic Iraq. We are ready to build that relationship in a sustainable way that protects our mutual interests, promotes regional stability, and requires fewer Coalition forces.
-- In response, this Declaration is the first step in a three-step process that will normalize U.S.-Iraqi relations in a way which is consistent with Iraq's sovereignty and will help Iraq regain its rightful status in the international community – something both we and the Iraqis seek. The second step is the renewal of the Multinational Force-Iraq's Chapter VII United Nations mandate for a final year, followed by the third step, the negotiation of the detailed arrangements that will codify our bilateral relationship after the Chapter VII mandate expires.
A "democratic Iraq" here means the Shiite-led Iraqi government. The current political arrangement will receive U.S. military protection against coups or any other internal subversion. That's something the Iraqi government wants desperately: not only is it massively unpopular, even among Iraqi Shiites, but the increasing U.S.-Sunni security cooperation strikes the Shiite government -- with some justification -- as a recipe for a future coup.
Notice also the timetable. The U.S. and Iraq will negotiate another year-long United Nations mandate for foreign troops in Iraq, which will expire (I think) in late December 2008. According to today's declaration, following the forthcoming renewal at the U.N., "we will begin negotiation of a framework that will govern the future of our bilateral relationship." That means that during Bush's last year in office, the administration will work out the terms of the U.S.'s stay in Iraq in order to, at the very least, seriously constrain the next administration's options for ending the U.S. presence. Even if Bush doesn't take the audacious step of signing a so-called Status of Forces Agreement -- the basic document for garrisoning U.S. forces on foreign soil -- while he's a lame duck, the simple fact of negotiations will create a diplomatic expectation that his successor will find difficult to reverse.
The White House is also taking steps to argue that there's nothing unusual about what it intends for Iraq. Here's that fact sheet again:
The Declaration Sets The U.S. And Iraq On A Path Toward Negotiating Agreements That Are Common Throughout The World
The U.S. has security relationships with over 100 countries around the world, including recent agreements with nations such as Afghanistan and former Soviet bloc countries.
Not stated, of course, is that Iraq would represent a military commitment opposed by most of the American people. Nor that it would represent codifying an unpopular war into an unpopular, indefinite war. Nor even what that commitment would entail. Here's the "principle" behind future U.S.-Iraq security ties:
To support the Iraqi government in training, equipping, and arming the Iraqi Security Forces so they can provide security and stability to all Iraqis; support the Iraqi government in contributing to the international fight against terrorism by confronting terrorists such as Al-Qaeda, its affiliates, other terrorist groups, as well as all other outlaw groups, such as criminal remnants of the former regime; and to provide security assurances to the Iraqi Government to deter any external aggression and to ensure the integrity of Iraq's territory.
In other words, we're staying in Iraq to defend Nouri al-Maliki against all enemies, foreign and domestic. What will the presidential candidates say about this?
From HuffPo lead Blog 11-26-07 4:00 PM Central
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Comments?
A majority of Americans are against US Troops in Iraq indefinitely....how will this play out in your opinion??
What about the candidates of both parties??? paraclete answered on 11/27/07:american troops will stay in Iraq as long as is necessary to protect oil supplies, that is a given and certainly while the Iranians are an issue | | Question/Answer | | PrinceHassim asked on 10/26/07 - Gaffe of the day ....................................... The gaffe of the day [week, month, year, decade, century, millennium, etc] was made by Brian Paraclete and Tom who say that Jews worship the Christian Trinity. This statement has severe political overtones that could end in bloodshed because Tom and Brian are claiming that Jews are exactly the same, and so are gathering Jews against their will into their own odd cults.
How can this be dealt with without bloodshed?
Ronnie
paraclete answered on 10/26/07:So now Christian belief has political overtones does it Ronnie? I suppose next you will be telling us that the Mormons were driven out of Missouri for political reasons.
For the Record - The Jews believe in YEHWEH - JEHOVAH (however you wish to pronounce the name of God) and the Christians also believe In YEHWEH - JEHOVAH as the Lord Almighty, the Father, but it can also be demonstrated that both the Jews and the Christians believe in the Messiah as God they are just not in agreement regarding his name. Scripture in referring to God and the Messiah Refer to Jesus as I am your Salvation. Scripture also refers to the Spirit of God, a belief held in common by both Christians and Jews. The difference of opinion lies, if there is a difference of opinion as to where God is divided into three separate entities or is one individual. Both Jews and True Christians hold that God is one individual.
There will be no bloodshed over this all the blood that needed to be shed was shed two thousand years ago | | Question/Answer | | purplewings asked on 10/23/07 - Concerned about our government erosion. I'm not just referring to the President being able to make new policy or ignore the wishes of the citizens, but to all politicians in general. In Michigan, we are in distress because of plant closings, corporate shut-downs, and lay offs with people losing their homes. At the same time, politicians in Lansing have overspent their budget leaving the state without proper funding for necessities such as police, prisons, schools, etc. Our elected officials have decided to rectify that by having another tax raise. Imagine losing jobs and homes to now being expected to pay for the state's failure to properly budget.
I recently read that when people stop paying attention or caring what the government does - it gives free rein for them to do whatever they like. It's hard to be interested when we are ignored and overburdened. How can we best get the government to do what they've been elected to do......serve us?
paraclete answered on 10/24/07:don't you love democracy, now you have the opportunity to get rid of those incompetent politicians and get some even more incompetent politicians to replace them. You get the government you deserve, if you hold them to a high standard you get politicians who can perform, if you don't hold them to account you gets monkeys | | Question/Answer | | purplewings asked on 10/20/07 - Just dipping my toe in the water. Is anyone here still? Can we start rumbling again? paraclete answered on 10/21/07:There are some of us here but it doesn't seem like there is much worth discussing just same old list of characters and thats been done to death | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 09/28/07 - How the heck.......... ...does Hillary plan to pull off a $5,000.00 bond to every baby born and not expect to have to raise taxes or anything to cover it????????? paraclete answered on 09/29/07:She will just follow the Australian example. You see the reality is if you lower personal taxes and have a broad based consumption tax then suddenly all things become possible because all those who are successfully evading tax get caught in the net, national debt can be reduced, the economy blossoms even if your manufacturing industries go offshore and unemployment becomes a thing of the past. More money for all means more money in the treasury, more taxes collected. the government is happy, the politicians are happy and the people are happy. It's called a win, win, taxation by representation. Come on, join in banana republic economics. | | Question/Answer | | Dark_Crow asked on 09/16/07 - I shall never complain again about the lack of a moderator here Scottgem is a real “Jewel.†He is the head moderator at askmehelpmedesk.com. He just deleated 6 perfectly innocent posts and closed a topic in politics after making an ass of himself...I shall never complain again about the lack of a moderator here. paraclete answered on 09/17/07:and we need to know this, why? | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 08/23/07 - have you caught the flu, Islam Flu, that is?
Muslim immigration likened to bird flu
By Nick Ralston
August 23, 2007 03:12pm
Article from: AAP
A NSW Senate candidate has compared the immigration of Muslims to Australia to the bird flu and says it should stop.
Christian Democratic Party (CDP) Senate candidate Paul Green called today for a moratorium on Muslim immigration while a study on its social impacts was carried out.
He said it would be easier to carry out such a study with the country's Muslim population at 300,000, rather than three million at a later date.
A study would also give the Australian people a chance to have a say on the immigration program, Mr Green said.
He said that in the last 12 months, a number of local Muslim senior clerics had made statements that were not of "the Australian nature".
"If there was bird flu coming from a people's group across the nation would we not halt, assess the risk management of what it means to Australia and then assess the factors and then say, is it not safe to continue that or withhold it until it is dealt with," he said.
"We are saying there's cracks in the foundation, we need to address them."
Mr Green said Australia would suffer the same fate as "Britain, France and Holland" unless the study was carried out.
However, he said the social impact study would not form part of any political deal done with the Liberal Party for preference swapping ahead of this year's federal election.
Christian Democrats leader Fred Nile said his party's immigration policy also called on a priority for Christians who have been persecuted, particularly in Muslim countries, to be allowed into Australia.
"It's a very broad policy, and it is certainly not racist," Mr Nile said.
"We don't care where the people come from, what colour of the skin they are, we are happy to accept them, particularly the Christians who have been persecuted."
Mr Nile said he believed the Federal Government was already starting to adopt some of the CDP policies.
paraclete answered on 08/30/07:Yes this is the flu season and Islam is like the flu it just won't go away | | Question/Answer | | arcura asked on 08/29/07 - Is this funny or the truth???????????????????????????? Tax truth
At first I thought this was funny...
then I realized the awful truth of it.
Be sure to read all the way to the end!
Tax his land,
Tax his bed,
Tax the table
At which he's fed.
Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes
Are the rule.
Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.
Tax his ties,
Tax his shirt,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.
Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he
Tries to think.
Tax his cigars,
Tax his beers,
If he cries, then
Tax his tears.
Tax his car,
Tax his gas,
Find other ways
To tax his ass
Tax all he has
Then let him know
That you won't be done
Till he has no dough.
When he screams and hollers,
Then tax him some more,
Tax him till
He's good and sore.
Then tax his coffin ,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in
Which he's laid.
Put these words
upon his tomb,
" Taxes drove me to my doom..."
When he's gone,
Do not relax,
Its time to apply
The inheritance tax.
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Excise Taxes
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax (42 cents per gallon)
Gross Receipts Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Personal Property Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service Charge Tax
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax
Sales Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State a ND Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago,
and our nation was the most prosperous in the world.
We had absolutely no national debt,
had the largest middle class in the world,
and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
What the hell happened? Can you spell "politicians!"
paraclete answered on 08/30/07:It seems you have more taxes than we do but then we sort of rolled a lot up into one. I think we borrowed some from you.
Goods and Services tax
Fuel Tax
Income tax
Medicare levy
Road tax
Liquor and Tobacco exise
Land Tax
Property sales stamp duty
Local Government Rates
Fire Brigades levy (Property tax)
Business Registration
E-tag (transport tax)
Fringe Benefits tax
Airport landing tax
Payroll tax
Building licence fees
Everything than can be taxed is taxed and if it isn't it will be. User pays, the great capitalist principle
| | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 08/08/07 - George W. Bush Tin Hats, $2.00 "For a while there, back when the Republicans held the White House and both houses of Congress, they were naming things after Ronald Reagan everywhere. Airports. Aircraft carriers. Federal buildings. There was even talk of replacing Roosevelt with Reagan on the dime.
Now, with the national landscape cratered with reminders of the apocalypse their public policy has wrought since 1980, maybe it's time to revisit the concept and start naming American disasters after the people and policies that caused them.
Obviously, the new 35W bridge in Minneapolis should be named for The Great Communicator. Infrastructure on the cheap began on his watch. Elsewhere locally, we might consider naming the boarded up school where my kid used to go, "No Child Left Behind Unfunded Mandate Park."
Baghdad? Rumsfeld City. Iraq? Cheneyland. We could have the George W. Bush National Deficit. For whom should we name that steam pipe crater in Manhattan?
We might even consider selling the naming rights to our institutions the way we sell the naming rights to our new, publicly-funded arenas and stadiums. Halliburton could donate a share of its Iraq windfall to New Orleans and put their name on a rebuilt Ninth Ward. For less than he paid for the Wall Street Journal, Rupert Murdoch could have the, "Rupert Murdoch Memorial Federal Communications Commission." And who would protest if the Carlyle Group were to plunk down a few billion to call it the "George and Barbara Bush Memorial Supreme Court"?
Santayana said those who cannot remember the lessons of the past are condemned to repeat them. Maybe naming these disasters and debacles after their authors will help us remember." Peter Smith, blogging
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paraclete answered on 08/09/07:It think that rebuilt Minneapolis bridge could be name the Geo. W. Bush Road Map to Failure Bridge giving a lasting legacy of three great and famous failures, the Minneapolis Bridge, George W. Bush and the Road Map to Peace. not often you get three for the price of one.
As to the rest I think Americans should stick to naming momuments in their own country | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 07/22/07 - BUSH TO BE CENSURED--MY FINAL POST WASHINGTON — "Liberal Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold said Sunday he wants Congress to censure President Bush for his management of the Iraq war and his "assault" against the Constitution.
Feingold, a prominent war critic, said he soon plans to offer two censure resolutions _ measures that would amount to a formal condemnation of the Republican president.
The first would seek to reprimand Bush for, as Feingold described it, getting the nation into war without adequate military preparation and for issuing misleading public statements. The resolution also would cite Vice President Dick Cheney and perhaps other administration officials.
The second measure would seek to censure Bush for what the Democrat called a continuous assault against the rule of law through such efforts as the warrantless surveillance program against suspected terrorists, Feingold said. It would also ask for a reprimand of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and maybe others.
"This is an opportunity for people to say, let's at least reflect on the record that something terrible has happened here," said Feingold, D-Wis. "This administration has weakened America in a way that is frightful."
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Yeah, "somethng terrible" happened here in America....Shit for brains Christian voters electing a shit for brains President who fucked up everything he touched. paraclete answered on 07/22/07:so it finally comes out you are continuing your hatred of Christians on the politics Board.
The decisions Bush makes are not Christian, they are political motivated not by Christian values but by the almighty dollar. | | Question/Answer | | Choux... asked on 07/19/07 - Joe Biden on Bush Senator Biden appeared On PBS's The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer this evening, and spoke about President Bush and the war in Iraq. While he argued that neither the Democrats or the President have offered a sustainable political solution for Iraq, he also said,
"There's a famous justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, who once said, 'Prejudice is like the pupil of the eye. The more light you shine on it, the more tightly it closes.' Well, for this president,information is like the pupil of the eye. The more information you give it, the more tightly he rejects it. He is living in an unrealistic fantasyland about the state of affairs on the ground in Iraq."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No one disagrees, do they? paraclete answered on 07/20/07:saw the interview, I think he said more that that | | Question/Answer | | Choux... asked on 07/19/07 - Bush will ask for more troops in Sept after "Surge" The Bush Administration has indoctrinated many Americans of lower intelligence into believing all his lies and misinformation about the War on Jihadists and Iraq. (See poll results of questions on the War on Iraq.)
In September after the current "Surge", Bush plans to send in *more troops*. (Washington insider rumor)
How do you feel about this? paraclete answered on 07/20/07:it would be foolish to build up troops in Iraq as it will fuel tensions in the region that US has other aspirations.
Recent commentary suggests that 50,000 troops are sufficient for terrorist suppression if Iraqi take over policing and solve the political problems such as oil wealth distribution. All that is achieved by troop buildup is to offer insurgents more targets. The US must now focus solely on persuing the war on terror. | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 07/18/07 - BUSH-his strategy for fighting AlQuaeda a Failure WASHINGTON, July 17 — President Bush’s top counterterrorism advisers acknowledged Tuesday that the strategy for fighting Osama bin Laden’s leadership of Al Qaeda in Pakistan had failed, as the White House released a grim new intelligence assessment that has forced the administration to consider more aggressive measures inside Pakistan.
Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in Turbat recently. His strategy in tribal areas has been criticized by President Bush’s advisers.
The intelligence report, the most formal assessment since the Sept. 11 attacks about the terrorist threat facing the United States, concludes that the United States is losing ground on a number of fronts in the fight against Al Qaeda, and describes the terrorist organization as having significantly strengthened over the past two years."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bush's man Chertoff of Homeland Security said that there will probably be an attack on America this summer by alQuaeda.
Why did Bush and the Neo-Cons totally screw up all the wars:
War in Afghanistan
War against Iraq
War against Jihadists
We are now worse off than we were on 910, no doubt about it. paraclete answered on 07/19/07:you don't get it do you. In earlier wars the US either had significant numerical and weaponary advantage or significant time to plan their attack or both. In these wars the push was on particularly in Afganistan and so early success is marked with stalemate as the opposing forces recover from the US strikes, and the will of the US to pursue the war wanes. Artificial borders have hampered the efforts in Afganisatan. In Iraq the politics took over early and the US alienated the locals with heavy handed tactics. Everyone was seen as an Baathist and an enemy to be suppressed. As far as a war on the jihadists goes, this is rhetoric. It is, and can only be an intelligence war, with few battles. The battles you can win with force of arms. Think about what happened in your own civil war, dispite significant numerical advantage, the north was at virtual stalemate around Washington. It took audacious action in other parts of the country to win the war. Leadership was lacking then and it is lacking now, but rhetoric abounded. | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 07/18/07 - Political Live Chat Tomorrow "...tomorrow at 2 pm EDT, as the dust settles on the Senate showdown, HuffPost will host a live chat with MoveOn.org's Tom Matzzie, who is currently spearheading a multi-state, multi-media, multi-million dollar campaign focused on turning up the heat on Republicans who are obstructing an end to the war. To take part, please send your Iraq questions, along with your name and town, to livechat@huffingtonpost.com between now and the start of the chat. Then be sure to log on to HuffPost Wednesday at 2 o'clock Eastern for this timely and vital conversation..."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Join me and sign up to be a participant on the live chat event on huffingtonpost tomorrow at 2. Start sending in your questions now so you will be considered!
Mary Sue paraclete answered on 07/18/07:You are, of course, kidding? | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 07/18/07 - Congratulations! I want to congratulate the good people of this Board for their good manners and the lack of spam which seems to infest certain other places on answerway paraclete answered on 07/18/07:I accept your gracious congratulations | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 07/18/07 - Are you bored? I am and although I seldom post nwes articles I couldn't resist this one.
Global Warming now world's most boring topic: report
Jim Schembri
July 18, 2007
Global warming and the debate over whether man-made carbon gas emissions are having a detrimental influence on climate change has been ranked as the most boring topic of conversation on earth, according to a new report.
The issue of global warming far out-performed other contenders for the title, such as the production of goat cheese, the musical genius of the artist formerly known as P Diddy and media speculation over the likely outcome of the upcoming federal election.
These topics still tracked strongly, according to the report, but global warming was identified as the topic most likely to prompt people into feigning heart attacks so as to avoid hearing the phrases "procrastination penalty", "precautionary principle" and "peer-reviewed analysis" ever again.
The study, conducted by a non-partisan think tank located somewhere between the small township of Tibooburra and the NSW border, identified global warming as the current topic of choice for people who want their dinner party to finish early.
According to the parents in the survey, global warming has now replaced the traditional bedtime story when it comes to putting children to sleep. The study found the topic was also being used instead of water cannon by riot police around the world to disperse crowds.
In a key finding, the survey revealed that the amount of damaging carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result of discussing the global warming issue now exceeds the greenhouse gas emissions of northern China.
The survey also raised a number of important issues regarding the global warming debate.
Of those surveyed, 83 per cent said that while they understood both sides of the issue, they did not understand Al Gore.
Participants in the study were asked whether Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth had helped enlighten people to the importance of the global warming issue.
The standard response was that if the issue of global warming is as important and urgent to Gore as he keeps saying every time he is on Letterman, then why didn't he make the movie during the eight years he was vice-president of the United States, the second most powerful position in the world? Why did he wait until his political career was dead?
The issue was also raised as to why Gore personally came out to promote his film in Australia - a relatively insignificant market - and then make a big deal about all the carbon off-setting he had done to counter the pollution his trip had generated. Over 95 per cent of those who took part in the survey wanted to know why he didn't just do it all from his house via satellite.
Other key findings of the survey were:
* 89 per cent wanted to know how it was possible for humans to control the climate, given that they have enough trouble forecasting it;
* 96 per cent believe those who use the term "climate change denial" are attempting to equate it with "Holocaust denial"
* 100 per cent of these respondents also believe such people should receive lengthy prison terms for crimes against the English language;
* 79 per cent of the bands that took part in the Live Earth event did so because they feared the planet would be destroyed by global warming before they had a chance to receive free worldwide television exposure;
* 87 per cent only tuned in to watch the lead singer from Sneaky Sound System, who is hot;
* 92 per cent of those same people watched her on mute because they didn't want to hear that song again;
Of all the issues raised in the survey, most common was whether the global warming debate was all just an elaborate ruse designed to sell stuff.
The study highlighted how those who subscribe to the prophecy of global warming automatically commit themselves to purchasing a vast array of expensive products, whereas sceptics don't have to buy anything to support their point of view.
Over 98 per cent of people surveyed also predicted that the standard response from global warming proponents to that last statement would be: "yeah, it won't cost anything - except the future of your planet".
paraclete answered on 07/18/07:sounds like they have been out in the sun too long, Mat. | | Question/Answer | | Choux... asked on 07/15/07 - Aboriginal Peoples(Aus) and Native Americans I was watching a program on Discovery about Aboriginal Peoples of Australia in the last few days. In Australia, the white settlers set out to exterminate aboriginal people and almost succeded in a couple of areas. JUst plain exterminate.
IN America, the govermnemt and settlers engaged in warring and moving Indians to different locations.
IN both cultures, the original native cultures are really floundering.
So, do you think that the governments have a responsibility to these defeated subjugated peoples? Political responsibility?
MOral responsibility? paraclete answered on 07/16/07:I think what you have seen is individual greed in both nations resulting in wholesale murder for land. however the position in Australia is different to America. The Colonial governments in Australia (British) never waged a military campaign against aboriginal peoples, and the Commonwealth government(after 1901) certainly never has. The aboriginal population was never large and conflicts were usually the result of aboriginals spearing livestock. The aborignal culture in Australia is floundering because of inter racial breeding. The half breed black is a fringe dweller. Those aboriginals keeping to their old ways are not floundering. The American Indian was a conquored people, the aboriginal was decimated by disease but never conquored because they never fought a discernable war, just a few raids against isolated homesteads. We have a term, Terra Nullius, the empty land, this is how Australia appeared to early settlers | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 07/12/07 - Cleaning House:
Let's bring all of our troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq. Let's round-up all the illegals in America and send them back to where they came from. Let's get health insurance for everyone in the United States. Bottom-line: Let the greatest country on Earth take care of itself and allow us to quit worrying about everyone in the World. We should be spending more money on self-preservation instead of pooping it away on lost causes.
At least that's one scenario! However, not necessarily mine! Any comments?
HANK
paraclete answered on 07/13/07:interesting ideas, who is going to clean up after you once all the servants have gone home. Look you go ahead and do that, the world would be be better off without you telling them what to do, but remember to take your trade with you when you go, then we can have fuel efficient cars, real food and withdrawl of american culture as well and best of all we get to keep the oil | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 07/04/07 - FREEDOM:
What is the dialectic of freedom, and how is it achieved?
HANK
paraclete answered on 07/05/07:freedom is the ability to act responsibly without undue restraint, it is not being able to do what ever you want to do | | Question/Answer | | Choux... asked on 07/02/07 - BRING THEM ON!!!! Today is the fourth anniversary of the famous Bush expression named above:
"..anybody who wants to harm American troops will be found and brought to justice. There are some who feel like that if they attack us that we may decide to leave prematurely. They don't understand what they're talking about, if that's the case.
Let me finish. There are some who feel like -- that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring them on!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Comments? paraclete answered on 07/04/07:Seriously four years and you haven't defeated them yet, why repeat this inane rubbish. Bush had no idea what he was up against then and he still has no idea today. How is it you think a few thousand fighters can hold off the "might" of the US. only because the US is impotent. They can level cities but cannot find an individual in a crowd. Bush is happy to fight in Iraq because his own home isn't being trashed. A big man, a coward more likely, if you truely want them to bring it on let the fight take place in NY, you then have the advantage of terrain and populace | | Question/Answer | | Dark_Crow asked on 06/22/07 - Why do the European’s hate America?.............. I’m told it is because of capitalism; especially Germany, others say it is still a “Jewish†problem. That the moods of the rural populations reflect the mood of the thirties, and when the economy fails, and it will, there will be hell to pay.
Which brings me to the other question: Why don’t we pay attention to where our future lies, across the Pacific, and forget about the E.U. and especially Germany; where Democracy will soon end - That is, stop asking why certain people are not our friends (I already know, they have become Socialist.) .
paraclete answered on 06/23/07:inequality, there can be no other explanation. and it has nothing to do with socialism, America has great relations with some socialist countries such as Australia. The Europeans mourn their lost empires and the influence that went with it, now an upstart empire from the other side of the world tells them what to do and doesn't listen to their collective wisdom | | Question/Answer | | Dark_Crow asked on 06/16/07 - Mass. preserves gay marriage The state legislature defeated a constitutional amendment to let the voters decide on a ban.
"We're proud of our state today, and we applaud the legislature for showing that Massachusetts is strongly behind fairness," (homosexuality)said Lee Swislow, executive director of Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders.
What perversion next?
paraclete answered on 06/16/07:it's only a short step now to legalise paedophilia. Watch out they will want to make it compulsory soon | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 06/14/07 - NEW MODERATOR TO BE MARYSUSAN I will be the new moderator for the Improved Policics Board when it opens. At that time, I will post the guide of conduct for discussing Politics here.
Cordially,
Mary Sue paraclete answered on 06/14/07:you are uninvited | | Question/Answer | | CeeBee2 asked on 06/05/07 - More fun -- fencing our southern border............... From Digger online --
Experts (And Digger) Say Virtual Fence Won't Work
By Digger
Experts -- and I -- agree that virtual fences don't work. They've been tried and failed. However where real fences have been tried, like in San Diego, they have been very effective. The cost differential is mild compared to the amount of money already thrown away on these experimental programs.
Washington Post
Since 1995, spending on border security has increased tenfold, from $1.2 billion to $12.7 billion, and the number of Border Patrol agents has more than doubled, from 5,000 to 12,319, according to the House Appropriations Committee. Yet the number of illegal immigrants in the United States has jumped from 5 million to more than 11 million.
In that same time no less than 2 "virtual fences" have been tried and failed. They obviously don't work and other than someone scratching someones business buddies back to the tune of $2.5 billion in taxpayer money, the latest "virtual fence", called the Secure Border Initiative Network (SBInet) awarded to Boeing, is doomed to failure as well.
The Department of Homeland Security and the former Immigration and Naturalization Service spent $429 million since 1998 on video and remote surveillance on the borders. But nearly half of 489 planned cameras were never installed, 60 percent of sensor alerts are never investigated, 90 percent of the rest are false alarms, and only 1 percent overall resulted in arrests, the Homeland Security inspector general reported in December.
That was really successful! And people are complaining about a few billion for a real fence.
Last week the House passed HR 6061 The Secure Fence Act and the Senate will be voting on HR 6061 which provides 700 miles of physical border fence next week.
"There has been a huge amount of money poured into the border . . . but the track record of the performance of these technologies is disappointing," said Doris Meissner, former INS commissioner.
Because they don't work and people keep proposing them because they don't want them to work. There are enemies in our midst that want these illegal aliens to keep pouring across. They make big money on them. Of course it's at the expense of the American taxpayer.
I'd say these "virtual fences" are "virtually" worthless. paraclete answered on 06/05/07:where I come from we have a saying;
good fences make good neighbours.
In the absence of a real border investing in a fence is the best idea | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 05/27/07 - moonbat! LOL ![]()
paraclete answered on 05/28/07:sounds about right, capitalism can not tolerate rivals | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 05/22/07 - Muslim survey And I'm not believing what I heard...ABC Radio news reported that most Muslims in America believe suicide bombings can never be justified, but "thirteen percent do in some cases." They then played a clip of some Muslim dude telling us Americans can now rest easy in knowing American Muslims are Americans first and Muslims second. Well now, that's comforting.
First, thirteen percent of Muslims believing suicide bombings can be justified to me is a disturbing number. And considering there are roughly 2.35 million Muslims in this country, that would mean over 300,000 don't have a problem with suicide bombings. On top of that, twenty-six percent of young Muslims can justify suicide bombings.
Moreover:
63% identified themselves as Democrats or as "leaning" toward the Democratic Party, although "On key social issues," Pew says, "Muslims in the U.S. are much more conservative than the general public. Most say that homosexuality is a way of life that should be discouraged, rather than accepted, by society. A large majority of Muslims (59%) also say that government should do more to protect
morality in society."
Only 25 percent consider the U.S. war on terrorism a sincere attempt to curtail international terror. Only 40 percent said they believe Arab men carried out the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
By six to one, they say the U.S. was wrong to invade Iraq, while a third say the same about Afghanistan -- far deeper than the opposition expressed by the general U.S. public.
And ABC tells us don't worry, be happy. Pew themselves headline the report, "Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream."
The first-ever, nationwide, random sample survey of Muslim Americans finds them to be largely assimilated, happy with their lives, and moderate with respect to many of the issues that have divided Muslims and Westerners around the world.
So American Muslims are more conservative on social issues than most Americans, but 63% identify with the party of abortion and gay rights - 71% having voted for John Kerry. 300,000 can find a way to justify suicide bombings and only forty percent believe Arabs had anything to do with 9/11 ... yet Muslims in America are mostly moderate and mainstream.
I don't know about you but I find it all quite disturbing on many levels.paraclete answered on 05/22/07:sounds like you are waking up over there. The muslim population represents a potential third column in any nation they exist in, because their loyalties are first to Islam and second to the country, no matter what they say. I would be very concerned that you have allowed this menace to grow to these proportions | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 05/19/07 - Vigilantes:
Could vigilanty societies help law enforcement clean up drug traffic?
HANK
paraclete answered on 05/19/07:Yes if you are willing to sanction wholesale murder and are prepared for the star chamber to operate. You might be the first accused Hank what would you do then | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 05/19/07 - A Frightening Scenario:
As we have been told, there are 100 million Hispanics in the United States. Then there are a great number of men/women in our prisons, a goodly population of Muslims frequenting all walks of life and only Heaven knows the number of those who make up other minority groups in America. Many countries hate our guts. A large number of our soldiers are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and a large number of our soldiers are stationed in foreign countries. Folks, I ask you: How would the United States ward off a revolution in America IF things heated up and those factions came together as an army of one?
HANK
paraclete answered on 05/19/07:Hank have you given yourself over to paranoia | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 05/19/07 - US opens door to millions of Muslims The proposed immigration deal will throw open our doors to increased immigration from Muslim lands, not just Mexico. From the US State Department website:
"The fourth and most recent wave of Muslim immigration (into the US) has come after 1965, the year President Lyndon Johnson sponsored an immigration bill that repealed the longstanding system of quotas by national origin. Under the new system, preferences went to relatives of U.S. residents and those with special occupational skills needed in the United States. The new law was a signal act in American history, making it possible for the first time since the early part of the 20th century for someone to enter the country regardless of his or her national origin. After 1965, immigration from Western Europe began to decline significantly, with a corresponding growth in the numbers of persons arriving from the Middle East and Asia. In this era more than half of the immigrants to America from these regions have been Muslim."
The new immigration bill will allow hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of Muslims to come into the United States over the next decade. Many of them have been indoctrinated all their lives to hate the United States, but that's not on the immigration qualifications. Nobody asks newcomers "have you been taught to hate the United States?" But that is exactly how France and Britain created their domestic terrorist threat: By importing hundreds of thousands of unassimilated people under the guise of multicultural love and peace. Almost all vote for the Left.
paraclete answered on 05/19/07:yes it's the sort of mistake we made too, no doubt influenced by the UN policies on refugees. But afterall you have a special interest in these peoples since it is your policies which contributed to their wish to move. The only hope any of us have now is to return to the isolationist past. | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 05/19/07 - Self-defense:
Is it time for all Americans to arm themselves?
HANK
paraclete answered on 05/19/07:I think the time has passed for that Hank, it's time for them to shoot themselves | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 05/18/07 - illegal immigrants WASHINGTON - In a striking reach across party lines, the White House and key lawmakers agreed Thursday on a sweeping immigration plan to grant legal status to millions of people in the country unlawfully.
Sealed after months of secretive bargaining, the deal mandates bolstered border security and a high-tech employment verification system to prevent illegal workers from getting jobs.
President Bush said the proposal would "help enforce our borders but equally importantly, it'll treat people with respect."
The compromise brought together an unlikely alliance of liberal Democrats such as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and conservative Republicans such as Sen. Jon Kyl (news, bio, voting record) of Arizona on an issue that carries heavy potential risks and rewards for all involved.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., said debate would begin on Monday, but he cautioned, "I don't know if the immigration legislation is going to bear fruit and we're going to be able to pass it."
Almost instantly, the plan brought vehement criticism from both sides of the immigration issue, including liberals who called it unfair and unworkable and conservatives who branded it an overly permissive "amnesty."
The proposal constitutes a far-reaching change in the immigration system that would admit future arrivals seeking to put down roots in the U.S. based on their skills, education levels and job experience, limiting the importance of family ties. A new class of guest workers would be allowed in temporarily, but only after the new security measures were in place — expected to take 18 months.
"This is a bill where people who live here in our country will be treated without amnesty but without animosity," Bush said.
Kennedy hailed it as "the best possible chance we will have in years to secure our borders and bring millions of people out of the shadows and into the sunshine of America."
Kyl said the measure wasn't perfect, "but it represents the best opportunity that we have in a bipartisan way to do something about this problem."
It was clear, however, that many Republicans and Democrats were deeply skeptical. Reid said it needed improvement.
"I have serious concerns about some aspects of this proposal, including the structure of the temporary worker program and undue limitations on family immigration," Reid said.
Conservatives on both sides of the Capitol derided the deal as "amnesty" for illegal immigrants, using a politically charged word that figured prominently in campaigns across the country last year.
"I don't care how you try to spin it, this is amnesty," said Sen. Jim DeMint (news, bio, voting record), R-S.C.
The proposed agreement would allow illegal immigrants to come forward and obtain a "Z visa" and — after paying fees and a $5,000 fine — ultimately get on track for permanent residency, which could take between eight and 13 years. Heads of households would have to return to their home countries first.
They could come forward right away to claim a probationary card that would let them live and work legally in the U.S., but could not begin the path to permanent residency or citizenship until border security improvements and the high-tech worker identification program were completed.
A new crop of low-skilled guest workers would have to return home after stints of two years. They could renew their visas twice, but would be required to leave for a year in between each time. If they wanted to stay in the U.S. permanently, they would have to apply under the point system for a limited pool of green cards.
The program drew fire from liberal groups that said it was unworkable. They had joined Democrats in pressing instead for guest workers to be permitted to stay and work indefinitely in the U.S., and ultimately earn the chance to stay.
"Without a clear path to permanent residence for a healthy share of the future temporary workers, we run the risk of reproducing the widespread illegality that this bill is designed to address," said Frank Sharry, the executive director of the National Immigration Forum.
Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record), D-N.D., said he would try to kill the temporary worker program because it would bring in a potentially unlimited stream of immigrants to compete with Americans for jobs and depress wages.
In perhaps the most hotly debated change, the proposed plan would shift from an immigration system primarily weighted toward family ties toward one with preferences for people with advanced degrees and sophisticated skills. Republicans have long sought such revisions, which they say are needed to end "chain migration" that harms the economy.
Family connections alone would no longer be enough to qualify for a green card — except for spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens. Strict new limits would apply to U.S. citizens seeking to bring foreign-born parents into the country.
The issue quickly became a subject of debate among presidential candidates in both parties, exposing divisions among Republicans.
Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., who led the charge last year to push through an immigration overhaul, called the deal "the first step" and urged moving it forward before the politics of 2008 made such action impossible.
"We all know that this issue can be caught up in extracurricular politics unless we move forward as quickly as possible," said McCain.
Mitt Romney, another Republican presidential hopeful, issued a statement calling the plan "the wrong approach," saying it conferred "a form of amnesty" on illegal immigrants. "That is unfair to the millions of people who have applied to legally immigrate to the U.S.," the former Massachusetts governor said.
Former Republican Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee, who is weighing a presidential bid, said the measure should be scrapped in favor of one that secures the border.
"With this bill, the American people are going to think they are being sold the same bill of goods as before on border security," Thompson said in a statement.
Democratic Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) of Illinois said the compromise needs work.
"Without modifications, the proposed bill could devalue the importance of family reunification, replace the current group of undocumented immigrants with a new undocumented population consisting of guest workers who will overstay their visas, and potentially drive down wages of American workers," Obama said in a statement
paraclete answered on 05/19/07:looks like the US will have a new open borders policy | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 05/15/07 - Just How Crazy are the Democrats? The paranoid style in American liberalism.
By Jonah Goldberg
Most fair-minded readers will no doubt take me at my word when I say that a majority of Democrats in this country are out of their gourds.
But, on the off chance that a few cynics won’t take my word for it, I offer you data. Rasmussen Reports, the public opinion outfit, recently asked voters whether President Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks beforehand. The findings? Well, here’s how the research firm put it: “Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent of Democrats believe he did know, 39 percent say he did not know and 26 percent are not sure.â€
So, one in three Democrats believe that Bush was in on it somehow, and a majority of Democrats either believe that Bush knew about the attacks in advance or can’t quite make up their minds.
There are only three ways to respond to this finding: It’s absolutely true, in which case the paranoid style of American liberalism has reached a fevered crescendo. Or, option B, it’s not true, and we can stop paying attention to these kinds of polls. Or there’s option C — it’s a little of both.
My vote is for C. But before we get there, we should work through the ramifications of A and B.
We don’t know what kind of motive respondents had in mind for Bush, but the most common version has Bush craftily enabling a terror attack as a way to whip up support for his foreign policy without too many questions.
The problem with rebutting this sort of allegation is that there are too many reasons why it’s so stupid. It’s like trying to explain to a 4-year-old why Superman isn’t real. You can spend all day talking about how kryptonite just wouldn’t work that way. Or you can just say, “It’s make-believe.â€
Similarly, why try to explain that it’s implausible that Bush was evil enough to let this happen — and clever enough to get away with it — yet incapable either morally or intellectually of doing it again? After all, if he’s such a villainous super-genius to have paved the way for 9/11 without getting caught, why stop there? Democrats constantly insinuate that Bush plays politics with terror warnings on the assumption that the higher the terror level, the more support Bush has. Well, a couple of more 9/11s and Dick Cheney will finally be able to get that shiny Bill of Rights shredder he always wanted.
And, if Bush — whom Democrats insist is a moron — is clever enough to green-light one 9/11, why is Iraq such a blunder? Surely a James Bond villain like Bush would just plant some WMD?
No, the right response to the Rosie O’Donnell wing of the Democratic Party is, “It’s just make-believe.†But if they really believe it, then liberals must stop calling themselves the “reality-based†party and stop objecting to the suggestion that they have a problem with being called anti-American. Because when 61 percent of Democrats polled consider it plausible or certain that the U.S. government would let this happen, well, “blame America first†doesn’t really begin to cover it, does it?
So then there’s option B — the poll is just wrong. This is quite plausible. Indeed, the poll is surely partly wrong. Many Democrats are probably just saying that Bush is incompetent or that he failed to connect the dots or that they’re just answering the question in a fit of pique. I’m game for option B. But if we’re going to throw this poll away, liberals need to offer the same benefit of the doubt when it comes to data that are more convenient for them. For example, liberals have been dining out on polls showing that Fox News viewers, or Republicans generally, are more likely to believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11. Now, however flimsy, tendentious, equivocal, or sparse you may think the evidence that Hussein had a hand in 9/11 may be, it’s ironclad compared with the nugatory proof that Bush somehow permitted or condoned those attacks.
And then there’s option C, which is most assuredly the reality. The poll is partly wrong or misleading, but it’s also partly right and accurate. So maybe it’s not one in three Democrats suffering from paranoid delusions. Maybe it’s only one in five, or one in 10. In other words, the problem isn’t as profound as the poll makes it sound. But that doesn’t mean the Democratic Party doesn’t have a serious problem.
Comments?
Steve
P.S. And for you conspiracy theorists that don't believe the fire in the World Trade Center couldn't possibly be hot enough to melt steel, I give you this reminder.paraclete answered on 05/16/07:Bush may be many things but it is doubtfull he is a mass murderer of Americans. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 05/15/07 - I can't figure this shiite out The Boston Globe,a NY Slimes affiliate reported yesterday about the Iraqi Shiites growing influence in Iran .
So some Iranians are intrigued by the more freewheeling experiment in Shi'ite empowerment taking place across the border in Iraq, where -- Iraq's myriad problems aside -- imams can say whatever they want in political Friday sermons, newspapers and satellite channels regularly slam the government, and religious observance is respected and encouraged but not required.
In Tehran's storied central bazaar, an increasing number of merchants are sending their religious donations, a 20 percent tithe expected from all who can spare it, to Iraq's most senior Shi'ite cleric -- rather than to clerics closer to Iran's state power structure, said Jawad al-Ghaie, 48, a wholesaler of false eyelashes and nail extensions and a respected lay donor.
Speaking carefully to avoid directly challenging the Iranian government, he and several fellow merchants suggested that Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani holds more spiritual sway because of his lifelong commitment to quietism. That is the school of thought that says Shi'ite leaders should stay out of government, and Sistani has stuck to it despite the great temptation to wade into the chaos of Iraqi politics.
So here is some direct positive improvements rippling across the Iraq border (that coincidently neo-cons predicted )being reported by a NY Slimes sister paper .Potentially good news right ?
Yet the NY Slimes editorial board still is beating the drum that all is lost .
paraclete answered on 05/16/07:What's to figure out? the man obviously believes in some form of seperation between religion and State. We all know that this is not an attitude demonstrated by the Islamic (shiite) Republic of Iran but in a religiously mixed society with warring factions it is a realistic position. | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 05/14/07 - Did you know....................................... .......that trying to teach the concepts of chivalry (honor, dignity, selflessness, etc) to 7th grade wannabe gangsters is like trying to teach a damn pig to sing?
....sigh....
Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?
DK paraclete answered on 05/15/07:don't give up, they will appreciate your efforts as adults, right now they think it's smart, and in, to show disrespect. A good belt around the head can sometimes improve their point of veiw.
Why are you in this handbasket? because the dogooders don't want you to bruise their prescious psychies along with their butts | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 05/11/07 - Don't you wish Harry Truman was President?
Why Harry S. Truman is the president we want now!
By Marshall Loeb, MarketWatch
Last Update: 4:59 PM ET May 11, 2007
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The cover of the current issue of Newsweek magazine features the jaunty photo of a president from the U.S. past, with the headline: "Wanted: A New Truman."
To which we say, Amen!
Several times in these columns we have praised Harry S. Truman, the nation's 30th president (from 1945 to 1953). Now that he is being held up as the prototypical example of the president we presumably want, it's a good time to examine just who and what he was.
Harry Truman was cantankerous and controversial, but also honest, loyal, determined, far-sighted, fearless, and -- above all -- courageous. He made more decisions that changed the course of history than any other president. Had he not occupied the office, America's story would have been quite different, and not nearly as ennobling or successful!
* Just a couple of excerpts from Loeb's article.
What do you think?
HANK
paraclete answered on 05/11/07:I think you might already have him in George Bush, both embroiled the US in a war with long reaching consequences, both were willing to play brinkmanship with nuclear weapons and both were willing to follow a bomb them back to the stoneage mentality | | Question/Answer | tomder55 asked on 05/10/07 - Democrats again display their lack of ability....
...to conduct foreign policy .Bob Novak describes the brutal treatment Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe received from the Congressional Democrats :
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe returned to Bogota this week in a state of shock. His three-day visit to Capitol Hill in Washington to win over Democrats in Congress was described by one American supporter as "catastrophic." Colombian sources said Uribe was stunned by the ferocity of his Democratic opponents, and Vice President Francisco Santos publicly talked about cutting U.S.-Colombian ties.
Uribe got nothing from his meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders. Military aid remains stalled, overall assistance is reduced, and the vital U.S.-Colombian trade bill looks dead. The first Colombian president to crack down on his country's corrupt army officer hierarchy, and to assault both right-wing paramilitaries and left-wing guerrillas, last week confronted Democrats wedded to out-of-date claims of civil rights abuses and to rigidly protectionist dogma.
This is remarkable U.S. treatment for a rare friend on the South American continent, where Venezuela's leftist dictator Hugo Chavez can only exult in Uribe's embarrassment as he builds an anti-American bloc of nations. A former congressional staffer, who in 1999 helped author Plan Colombia against narco-guerrillas, told me: "President Uribe may be the odd man out, and that's no way to treat our best ally in South America."
Uribe has not given up on the Yankees. When he returned to Colombia, he issued boilerplate about his visit being "very important in opening a dialogue with American leaders." This week he publicly urged the sluggish army to "rescue the hostages" held by narco-guerrillas and "go after the ringleaders," while privately chewing out the generals for inactivity. At the same time, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, whose Foreign Service career includes Latin American duty, was in Bogota Tuesday insisting that the United States remains a great friend of Colombia.
A truer portent of the Colombian reaction to the rebuff in Washington last week was Vice President Santos's television interview Tuesday. Santos, a University of Texas graduate and former editor of the influential El Tiempo newspaper, said failure to ratify the free-trade agreement would "send a message to the external enemies of the United States" (meaning Venezuela's Chavez) that "this is how America treats its allies." He added that Colombia might "have to re-evaluate its relationship with the United States." A U.S. diplomat called that "a cream pie in the face" of the visiting Negroponte.
Hopes that the Democratic majority in Congress might perceive the importance of supporting Colombia were dashed April 20 when Al Gore canceled a joint appearance with Uribe at an environmental event in Miami. Gore cited allegations of Uribe's association with paramilitary forces a decade ago, charges denied by the Colombian president.
Gore's snub legitimized what the new congressional majority is intent on doing anyway. Democrats follow both left-wing human rights lobbyists and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney's protectionist campaign against the Colombian free-trade agreement. Rep. Sander Levin, chairman of the Ways and Means subcommittee on trade, as usual echoes labor's line against the bill.
In the wake of Uribe's visit to Washington, two prominent House Republicans -- former Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, ranking minority member of the Foreign Affairs Committee -- made a quick trip to Colombia. Visiting there for the first time in many years, they were struck by the progress. They met with Colombian national police who had just returned from Afghanistan, where they advised NATO forces in techniques for dealing with narco-terrorists.
Democrats in Congress seem oblivious to such help or such progress. Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee dealing with foreign aid, last month held up $55.2 million in military aid to Colombia because of "human rights" concerns. While Pelosi and her colleagues could not find a kind word for Uribe, Leahy insisted that he "supports" the Colombian president. As Lenin once put it, he supports him as a rope supports a hanged man.
President George W. Bush at least gave lip service to Uribe last week, but his concentration is on Iraq as the U.S. position in its own backyard deteriorates. Passivity is the best description of the administration's posture, while Democrats follow human rights activists, environmentalists and labor leaders on the road to losing an important ally.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What we have here is a moderate leader ,a key ally in a region where trouble is brewing coming to Washington and seeing the extremism of the Democrat party in action .I'm sure all our allies and the other fence sitters around the world are looking on with interest and concern over the actions and rhetoric coming out of Congress .As VP Santos said failure to ratify the deal would ``send a message to the eternal enemies of the United States that ... this is how America treats its allies. I guarantee ;if the US doesn't do business with Columbia ,Panama ,Peru ,the Chinese will be more than willing to do so.
I'm sure if Hugo Chavez or Daniel Ortega were to pay Pelosi a call I bet she'd be orgasmic in her praise. Word of advice to Uribe ; Next time you visit Washington ,wear a Che Guevera T-shirt and chant "gringos out of Iraq" . You'll be treated like a rock star. . paraclete answered on 05/11/07:Just typical of the paternalistic or is it mom knows best attitude of the americans towards other countries | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 05/10/07 - Howard Dean on the hurricane Listen to
Jim Quinn of www.warroom.com
on XM satelite radio channel 165 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.
For follow ups on....
He says reliable source says
The Kansas Governor told Brownback that she
'could not allow an opportunity pass. I made sure not to blame anybody outside the whitehouse. With Bush's numbers you can't really blame me for that'.
Brownback replied he was 'disappointed in her'.
She said, 'you know me I wouldn't say that if I didn't have to but Howard Dean told me [to].' She tried explaining it away saying 'well it could happen' [that way someday]. 'I didn't think it was right to use it either but in this climate I had to' [to not disappoint Dean]
She also said they have more than enough National Guard and humvees.
QUINN SAID HIS SOURCE SAID 'HOWARD DEAN CALLED HER AT
5 AM AND SAID HE WOULD GET BACK TO HER WITH THE DETAILS' [of what he wanted her to say].
DICK DURBIN CALLED HER BACK WITH THE DETAILS.
Layhe is somehow involved too.
She (the governor) called Brownback's office and the call was forwarded to him personally on his cell phone.
paraclete answered on 05/11/07:What is the point here, this is totally unintelligible, is all of american politics so confused, or is it just american media | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 05/09/07 - Iran kidnaps again. An employee of the organization that Lee Hamilton heads, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, has been kidnapped and is being held hostage by Iran.
This must be disheartening to Hamilton who, along with James Baker, headed up the Iraq Surrender Group that proposed "outreach" and diplomacy with Iran as a solution to the Iraq war. The way I see it ;kidnapping "outreach" has always been a part of the Iranian diplomatic play book . paraclete answered on 05/09/07:you cannot appease Islamics | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 05/04/07 - HIllary sHillary she accents a southern gospel persona
now she pitches her voice to sound like a farmer claiming she grow up on the farm working along side with illegal migrant Mexican workers babysitting their children
yet here is her biography
does it all add up or not?
Hillary Diane Rodham was born at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, and was raised in a Methodist family in Park Ridge, Illinois. Her father, Hugh Ellsworth Rodham, was a son of English immigrants and operated a small business in the textile industry. Her mother, Dorothy Emma Howell Rodham, was a homemaker. She has two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony.
As a child, Hillary Rodham was involved in many activities at church and at her public school in Park Ridge. She participated in a variety of sports and earned awards as a Brownie and Girl Scout.[2] She attended Maine East High School, where she had participated in student council, the debating team and the National Honor Society
A curmudgeon was the way one Hillary biographer, Norman King described Hugh while another, Roger Morris finds him guilty of the "psychological abuse of his children. Chief Petty Officer Hugh Rodham was a drill instructor who trained recruits in the Navy during World War II. Afterward he became a successful businessman in Chicago who moved his family to Park Ridge, an upper middle class suburb from a city apartment three years after Hillary was born. He was a regal presence in this family; Hillary says it was like the television sitcom, Father Know Best. But the humor was lacking according to Dorothy who said of Hillary, "She had to put up with him." Of course, Dorothy did too.
Hillary was Daddy Hugh's girl but what does this mean?
She was Hugh Rodham's victim who wanted his love and approval even as she tried to escape his stinginess, irascibility and perfectionism. The victim survived and was marked by an identification with the aggressor. Like Hugh the adult Hillary became irritable, demanding and the family breadwinner but that's getting ahead of her story. When she brought home a report card with all A's, Daddy replied that it must be an awfully easy school. We're not told what Dorothy Rodham said when she saw the grades maybe because this wasn't important or perhaps Mother Dorothy was also hard to please. It was Dorothy who said there was no room in the house for cowards when little Hillary ran home after an attack by an "obnoxious girl." Forced to confront her attacker, she won the battle and now had the respect of the neighborhood players, says biographer David Brock.
While Hillary's childhood is usually described as solidly middle class, Oppenheimer offers a grim portrait. Hugh Rodham may have driven a Cadillac and owned a home in a white-bread Chicago suburb, he writes, but he was a cheapskate who refused to take care of the place, and his drapery business was a one-man shop with walls stained brown from chewing-tobacco juice. Hillary has her brother Tony to thank for many of these details, since Tony told Oppenheimer about a cousin, Oscar Dowdy, who became the source for them. Dowdy also says that Hillary's mother was given to making anti-Jewish slurs (some about Hillary's grandmother's second husband Max Rosenberg).
paraclete answered on 05/07/07:poli speak, "I'm one of the common people". Yes common enough to be able to afford domestic servants | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 04/29/07 - Now for something of absolutely Earth shattering importance!
Cricket World Cup
Adam Gilchrist
Farce ruins Cup defence
By Toby Forage
FOXSPORTS.com.au editor
April 29, 2007
AUSTRALIA won an historic third successive World Cup this morning, but not before celebrating prematurely as the tournament's troubled run ended in complete farce.
With three overs left in the match, reduced to 38 overs-a-side because of rain, Sri Lanka's batsmen were offered the light and accepted, sparking wild celebrations from the Australia players.
But after whoops of delight and much prancing around, Ricky Ponting's men were told the game wasn't over after all, and after a long discussion with umpires Aleem Dar and Steve Bucknor, as well as off-field officials, play continued in near darkness.
It was an appalling way to finish a tournament that has been pilloried for its excessive length and lack of depth, and the International Cricket Council will have much to ponder in the four years between now and the next tournament on the sub-continent
The biggest shame is that Australia historic moment, and a performance of sheer class from Adam Gilchrist, will be forgotten as a result of a quite ludicrous finale.
Even the presentation rostrum was sent back into the stands by the officials when the only result possible was an Australia victory.
Three overs in darkness and another wicket later, the game mercifully ended with Sri Lanka on 8-215, chasing Australia's imposing 4-281, losing by 53 runs in a match punctuated by rain delays and the chaos of the ilk Fawlty Towers scriptwriters would have been proud of.
Australia's total was set up by an awesome knock of 149 by Gilchrist, who racked up his runs in little more than two hours from just 104 balls to set a new individual high score record in the World Cup final, beating Ponting's record of four years ago of 140.
"It's been a while between drinks for my hundred, and really pleasing to do it on such an important day," Gilchrist said in the gloom as Australia celebrated in front of a crowd that was probably grateful for its bright yellow team colours, given the ridiculous gloom.
"It's an unbelievable feeling. The guys have worked so hard," he added, without making mention of the bizarre circumstances of victory.
Gilchrist, dropped on 31, and fellow left hander Matthew Hayden's stand of 172 was a World Cup final first-wicket record, surpassing the 129 shared by England's Mike Brearley and Geoff Boycott during West Indies' 92-run win at Lord's in 1979.
Gilchrist opened up in Chaminda Vaas's second over. He flicked the bowler's eighth ball for four over square leg, and next ball he drove him over long-on for six.
Vaas, after an expensive three-over spell costing 24 runs, was replaced by fellow quick Dilhara Fernando, retained despite conceding 45 runs in five overs during Tuesday's 81-run semi-final win over New Zealand.
Fernando, in his second over, dropped a low caught and bowled chance off Gilchrist's checked drive, with the keeper on 31 and Australia 0-47, and conceded 74 from his eight overs.
Next ball Gilchrist struck him for four through mid-wicket to bring up Australia's fifty. The ball after was lashed through long-on and Gilchrist immediately topped that with a six in the same area.
He completed a 43-ball fifty with two sixes and five fours.
Off spinner Tillakaratne Dilshan wasn't let off the hook, Gilchrist driving the bowler over his head for two superb straight sixes as he passed his previous best score this tournament, 59 not out against Bangladesh.
The 35 year old then saw Australia to 100 in just 102 balls by off driving Fernando for six.
Gilchrist swept Murali for a six that soared over mid-wicket before Sri Lanka skipper Mahela Jayawardene brought back trump card Malinga in a bid to break the stand. His first ball back was smashed for six over long-off by Hayden.
Gilchrist then struck Malinga to the same boundary to bring up a superb century in 72 balls with six sixes and eight fours.
Hayden, renowned as a power-hitter and the tournament's leading run-scorer, was still in the 30s.
Sri Lanka's chase began badly when Upul Tharanga edged a ball into Gilchrist's gloves behind the wicket after less than 10 minutes of the reply.
But Kumar Sangakkara and veteran left hander Sanath Jayasuriya gave Sri Lanka hope of a repeat of the 1996 final, when it beat Australia, with a partnership of 116 before Sangakkara was caught on 54 by Ponting off Brad Hogg's spin bowling.
When part-time bowler Michael Clarke clean bowled Jayasuriya for 63 with a short ball that didn't bounce, Sri Lanka's chase had faltered, and victory began to look inevitable.
After the farce of the end that wasn't, victory eventually was Australia's, and it's third straight World Cup in the bag.
Australia did not lose a single match at this World Cup, extending an extraordinary run of victories that goes back to 1999 and defeat to Pakistan in the group stage of that tournament, which it won to start the hat-trick of titles.
With Agence France-Presse
paraclete answered on 04/30/07:Yes indeed in sport Australia has once again truimphed. I would that we could win all our wars as easily | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 04/22/07 - pc'ers at it again Now they are complaining about Geico's caveman commerical's being insensitive to the dead. They
say just because cavemen are extinct doesn't give them the right to make fun of them.
WHAT NEXT???? paraclete answered on 04/22/07:cavemen arn't extinct they merely moved up market, the fact is we still live in caves, it's just that we build them ourselves | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 04/20/07 - It's official The Iraq war is lost . Harry Reid has proclaimed it so it must be true. "I believe ... that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week." He is as certain of it as Churchill was of victory .
Chuck the schmuck Shumer is besides himself with glee. “We are going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war.â€....“The war in Iraq is a lead weight attached to their ankle,†“We will break them [the Republicans ...not the jihadists ], because they are looking extinction in the eye.â€
DNC will host a victory party this weekend .......BE THERE !!
Win the war, they lose. Lose the war, they win.
If buttercups buzz'd after the bee,
If boats were on land, churches on sea,
If ponies rode men and if grass ate the cows,
And cats should be chased into holes by the mouse,
If the mamas sold their babies
To the gypsies for half a crown;
If summer were spring and the other way round,
Then all the world would be upside down.
("The World Turned Upside Down")
paraclete answered on 04/21/07:The war in Iraq was lost a long time ago, it just need someone with enough insight to say it | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 04/16/07 - I finally figured out the cause of global warming. I have done a study of this issue, and I have come to the conclusion that the Liberals are right. Global Warming is indeed a man-made occurance. Furthermore, it is the fault of the Federal Government of the United States, just as the Libs have been saying for years.
The cause of global warming?
Taxes.
After having done a study of the issue, I have come to the conclusion that there is a positive corallary between taxes and temperature records.
First of all, just as temperatures have been going up for years, taxes have been going up as well. So there is the first correlation.
But the evidence is much stronger than that. I have done a review of Federal tax receipts as a percentage of GDP for the period of 1946 - 2006. I have also done are review of temperature records to obtain the average temperatures for the month of April (tax month) in Albany, NY. While temperature records for Federal tax collections were complete, the temperature records for Albany were missing 9 years worth of information. Nevertheless, despite the incompleteness of the data, I continued my study. (After all, if the pseudo-scientists who make claims of global warming can do so with huge amounts of data lacking, so can I.)
My study led to the following conclusion. Over the past 60 years, tax receipts as a percentage of GDP have gone up by 190 basis points. If we eliminate the years for which we do not have temperature records, the increase in taxes as a percentage of GDP increases by 210 basis points. During the same period, temperatures for the month of April have increased an average of 0.03 degrees Celcius. This shows a clear correlation... taxes up, temperatures up.
Furthermore, there were 23 cases where both temperatures and percetage of GDP moved in the same direction. That is, when taxes as a percentage of GDP went up, the temperature went up, and when taxes as a percentage of GDP went down, temperatures went down. That's 23 out of 51 times when there was congruity between the movement of taxes as a percentage of GDP and temperatures in Albany. This shows a clear correlation between taxes and global warming.
Since US Federal taxes are a function of the US government, temperature change must also be a function of the US government. This would mean that the US government is at fault for Global warming, just as the Liberals have stated.
There are two clear solutions to global warming. The first would be to increase GDP while holding taxes at their current level. We need to increase the productivity of the United States so that taxes become a smaller percentage of GDP, thus driving environmental temperatures down. Of course, this would require an increase in our industrial performance and capacity. But since we have now proven that industrial emmissions aren't the real cause of global warming, that shouldn't be too much of a problem.
The second solution would be to hold GDP steady, but lower taxes. This too would result in taxes being a lower percentage of GDP. This might sound easier than the first solution... after all, it just takes a vote of Congress to make that happen. However, in reality, getting Congress to agree to lower taxes is never an easy task. It is easier to build thousands of new industrial plants than it is to get Congress to cut taxes. Nevertheless, it might be time for Congress to take the hard actions necessary to protect the world from tax-driven global warming. The US government has a responsibility to act.
Below are the data used to come to the above conclusions.
.......Taxes..%Chng..Albany..Chng in
Year...% GDP...GDP.. Temp....Temp.
1947...16.5...-1.1...6.4.....-0.7
1948...16.2...-0.3...8.5......2.1
1949...14.5...-1.7...9.1......0.6
1950...14.4...-0.1...6.3.....-2.8
1951...16.1....1.7...8.6......2.3
1952...19......2.9...10.2.....1.6
1953...18.7...-0.3...8.0.....-2.2
1954...18.5...-0.2...8.9......0.9
1955...16.6...-1.9...9.8......0.9
1956...17.5....0.9...5.8.....-4.0
1957...17.8....0.3...9.4......3.6
1958...17.3...-0.5...9.5......0.1
1959...16.1...-1.2...9.1.....-0.4
1960...17.9....1.8...9.8......0.7
1961...17.8...-0.1...6.8.....-3.0
1962...17.6...-0.2...8.7......1.9
1963...17.8....0.2...7.9.....-0.8
1964...17.6...-0.2...8.0......0.1
1965...17.0...-0.6...N/A
1966...17.4....0.4...N/A
1967...18.3....0.9...N/A
1968...17.7...-0.6...N/A
1969...19.7....2.0...N/A
1970...19.0...-0.7...N/A
1971...17.3...-1.7...N/A
1972...17.6....0.3...N/A
1973...17.7....0.1...9.2
1974...18.3....0.6...8.9.....-0.3
1975...17.9...-0.4...4.9.....-4.0
1976...17.2...-0.7...9.9..... 5.0
1977...18.0....0.8...8.6.....-1.3
1978...18.0....0.0...6.2.....-2.4
1979...18.5....0.5...7.7......1.5
1980...19.0....0.5...8.9......1.2
1981...19.6....0.6...9.1......0.2
1982...19.1...-0.5...7.2.....-1.9
1983...17.5...-1.6...8.0......0.8
1984...17.4...-0.1...8.8......0.8
1985...17.7....0.3...9.6......0.8
1986...17.4...-0.3...10.4.....0.8
1987...18.4....1.0...10.3....-0.1
1988...18.2...-0.2...8.0.....-2.3
1989...18.4....0.2...6.9.....-1.1
1990...18.0...-0.4...9.5......2.6
1991...17.8...-0.2...10.6.....1.1
1992...17.5...-0.3...7.0.....-3.6
1993...17.6....0.1...9.0......2.0
1994...18.1....0.5...9.0......0.0
1995...18.5....0.4...6.7.....-2.3
1996...18.9....0.4...7.9......1.2
1997...19.3....0.4...7.0.....-0.9
1998...20.0....0.7...9.5......2.5
1999...20.0....0.0...8.6.....-0.9
2000...20.9....0.9...7.4.....-1.2
2001...19.8...-1.1...8.7......1.3
2002...17.9...-1.9...9.9......1.2
2003...16.5...-1.4...7.0.....-2.9
2004...16.3...-0.2...9.3......2.3
2005...17.6....1.3...10.1.....0.8
2006...18.4....0.8...10.0....-0.1
Average Change 0.19..........0.03
Hey, it makes about as much sense as any argument the pseudo-scientific knuckleheaded environ-mental cases put out.
Elliot paraclete answered on 04/16/07:wonderbah! now this explains why Australia, which has worked diligently to reduce taxes, and increase productivity, is having no effect on global warming. Without the help of the US we are doomed, doomed I say, which is exactly what everyone is saying. It is all the fault of the US. We can all stop working long hours for our multinational bosses because it is having no effect. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 04/12/07 - Racist bile I'm sure you've all heard about or seen the O'Reilly/Geraldo smackdown, and Joanne Ostrow,
Denver Post Television Critic has defined for us what "racist bile" is.
O'Reilly invited Ms. Ostrow to his program and she declined, so he sent his producer to talk to her. After asking her several times what "racist bile" O'Reilly had 'spewed' she finally boiled it down to this, he used the term "illegal alien" instead of "undocumented immigrant." There you have it, another phrase bites the dust - in spite of its accuracy, and in spite of the fact there is no indication of race in using the term.
Illegal - prohibited by law
Alien - foreign, owing allegiance to another country
Seems straightforward to me, but then what do I know, I'm apparently just a racist. And oh yea, I watched the video and read the transcript and the only one who used the term 'illegal alien(s)' was Geraldo - 8 times. One more episode of a liberal member of the media creating their own reality at the expense of the truth and someone else's reputation. paraclete answered on 04/13/07:well what do you expect in a country where illegal alien has the connotation of hispanic origin, let us think of some other non racial terms like - african american that PC would like to use rather than saying of southern african appearance, hey what do egyptian americans look like? Do you say mexican american or hispanic?
this racialism that you go one with over there has to stop. In my country we don't find it necessary to refer to a person's race very often but when we do we don't tack the country on the back end of it to make it seem like we are not being racist. When we are being racist you arn't left in any doubt. We have two types of people in this country, aboriginal and non aboriginal, this is a distinction aboriginal people make, the rest of us couldn't care less. You see we know? | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 04/12/07 - Some humor A college professor, an avowed atheist, was teaching class one day when he shocked several of his students by flatly stating that there is no God, that the expression "One Nation Under God" is unconstitutional, and that he was going to prove that God did not exist. Addressing the ceiling he shouted: "God, if you are real, then I challenge you to knock me off this platform. I'll give you 15 minutes!"
The lecture hall fell silent. You could have heard a pin drop. Ten minutes went by. Again he taunted God, saying: "Here I am, God. I'm still waiting."
Just before the 15 minutes came to an end, a guy who had been in Special Forces and was now a civilian, newly registered in the class, walked up to the professor, hit him full force in the face, and sent
the man ass over teacups from his lofty platform, knocking the professor out cold! At first the students were shocked and babbled in confusion.
The young ex-Green Beret looked around the room, sauntered over to a seat in the front row, and sat down. He waited silently for the professor to recover. The class fell silent, too.
Eventually, the professor regained consciousness. Clearly shaken, he looked around the room until he spotted the young man who had hit him sitting in the front row, a broad grin splitting his face. When the
prof regained his senses sufficiently enough to speak, he yelled: "What's the matter with you? Why did you do that?"
"God was busy," the young ex-SF trooper drawled, "so He sent me."
--------------
Hard pressed on my right.
My center is yielding.
Impossible to maneuver.
Situation excellent.
I am attacking.
--------------
Rules for gunfighting...
USMC
1. Be courteous to everyone, friendly to no one.
2. Decide to be aggressive ENOUGH, quickly ENOUGH.
3. Have a plan.
4. Have a back-up plan, because the first one probably won't work.
5. Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
6. Do not attend a gunfight with a handgun whose caliber does not start with a Ř."
7. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is expensive.
8. Move away from your attacker. Distance is your friend. (Lateral and diagonal movement are preferred.)
9. Use cover or concealment as much as possible.
10. Flank your adversary when possible. Protect yours.
11. Always cheat; always win. The only unfair fight is the one you lose.
12. In ten years nobody will remember the details of caliber, stance, or tactics. They will only remember who lived.
13. If you are not shooting, you should be communicating or reloading.
14. Someday someone may kill you with your own gun, but they should have to beat you to death with it because it is empty.
15. And above all ... don't drop your guard.
Navy SEAL
1. Look very cool in the latest sunglasses.
2. Kill every living thing within view.
3. Return quickly to looking very cool in latest beach wear, check tan lines.
4. Check hair in mirror.
US Army Rangers
1. Walk in 50 miles wearing 95 pound ruck while starving.
2. Locate individuals requiring killing.
3. Request permission via radio from "Higher" to perform killing.
4. Curse bitterly when mission is aborted.
5. Walk out 50 miles wearing a 95 pound ruck while starving.
US Army
1. Select a new beret to wear.
2. Sew combat patch on right shoulder.
3. Reconsider the color of beret you decide to wear.
US Air Force
1. Have a cocktail.
2. Adjust temperature on air-conditioner.
3. See what's on HBO.
4. Determine "what is a gunfight."
5. Send the Army.
US Navy
1. Go to Sea.
2. Drink Coffee.
3. Launch airplanes and cruise missiles.
-------------------
A General died and went to Heaven. At the pearly gates he was met by St. Peter. He told St. Peter right away, "If there are Special Forces Soldiers in Heaven, I don't want to go in because I hate SF." St. Peter said, "Don't worry about it because no Special Forces made it to Heaven."
So the General went on into Heaven and began looking at all the wonderful sights, when all of a sudden he spotted something that he just couldn't believe.
There before his eyes was a 6' 5" 275 lb. muscle-bound specimen of manhood wearing a Green Beret. Not only that, this guy had a 4 day growth of beard, scuffed up jungle boots, big, fat cigar in his mouth, an M-60 in one hand, a Claymore in the other, bandoleers of ammo across his chest and numerous hand-grenades hung all over him. The General called over St. Peter and said, "I thought you said there weren't any of them Special Forces guys in Heaven...there's one right over there."
St. Peter looked where the General was pointing and said, "That's God, he's not Special Forces qualified, he just likes to pretend he is."
---------------
Back in Viet Nam, there were two fine Special Forces soldiers, Jeff and Dave.
One day, the two were enjoying a strong sarsaparilla in the Delta Hilton, when a SOG man walked into the bar with an NVA's head under his arm. The CO shakes
his hand and says, "I hate NVA! Last week the SOB's burnt an A-camp to the ground, shot up the troops, and killed some Indig troops." The CO then says, "If any man brings me the head of an NVA, I'll give him one thousand dollars."
The two Special Forces soldiers looked at each other and walked out of the bar to go hunting for an NVA. They were stalking around in the jungle for a while when suddenly they saw one. Jeff, in order to be silent, threw a rock which hit the NVA right on the head. The NVA fell down, but landed seventy feet down a ravine.
The two troopers made their way down the ravine and Dave pulled out a knife to claim their trophy.
Suddenly, Jeff said, "Dave, take a look at this." Dave replied, "Not now, I'm busy." Jeff urgently tugged him on the shoulder and says, "I really think you should look at this." Dave says, "Look, you can see I'm busy. There's a thousand dollars in my hand." But Jeff was adamant. "Please, take a look at this."
Dave looked up and saw standing at the top of the ravine were five thousand NVA. He just shook his head and said, "Oh my goodness, we're gonna be millionaires!"
------------
Elliot paraclete answered on 04/13/07:elliot just a little something especially for you
Three Texans are sitting together on an airplane. Two are hardy, tall men wearing cowboy boots and 10 gallon hats. The third is a little old Jewish man wearing a yalmuke, short pants, and high black sox with sandles.
The first Texan says: My name is Roger, I have 2000 acres and 3,000 head of cattle. I call my place "The Jolly Roger."
The second Texan says: My name is Gene. I own 5.000 acres and 5,000 head. I call my place "Gene's Ranch Estate."
The little old Jewish man says: I own 200 acres and got no cattle.
And what do you call your place says Roger sarcastically.
Downtown Dallas says the old Jewish man. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 04/11/07 - GWOT is merely a colloquialism “When I use a word,†Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.â€
“The question is,†said Alice, “whether you can make words mean do many different things.â€
“The question is,†said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.â€
Rep. Ike Skelton, the Chair of the House Armed Services Committee decided lasst week that he is not comfortable with the phrase The 'Global War On Terrorism'. Can't say I blame him ;I quit using it a long time in favor of the 'War Against Jihadistan' or 'Islamo-Nazi scumbags' .
the chairman , said the decision to limit use of the “global war on terror†and the “long war†was done as part of an effort to the standardize grammar and terms to be used in writing the 2008 defense authorization bill. “Each year, the members and staff of the House Armed Services Committee work to prepare the best possible defense authorization bill,†Skelton said in a statement. “When writing legislation, the words we choose are important, and we make every effort to be as precise and specific as possible so that congressional intent may be understood.â€
U.S. military operations in Iraq are “separate and distinct from the war against terrorists, who have their genesis in Afghanistan and who attacked us on 9/11, and the American people understand this,†Skelton said, adding that Republican objections to “our efforts to clarify legislative language represent the typical Republican leadership attempt to tie together the misadventure in Iraq and the overall war against terrorists.â€
So his real transparent motivation is to isolate the funding of the Iraq theater from the global war against the jihadists . When they tire of that one they will soon tire of Afghanistan ;and so on and so on.
By banning the phrase Skelton hopes to
restore the sense of calm and peace that prevailed during the Clinton Administration ;in other words ;let's just bury our heads in the sand like the good ole days and ignore those who want us gone. In Harry Potter lingo it is "the war that must not be named" . Just sprinkle some pixie dust and wave that magic lexicon wand ..maybe if we don't mention it it will go away !
I got it ! Let's change the name "Armed Services Committee " to "Surender Monkey Committee".I think I'll email San Fran Nan Belle al-Pelosi with the idea .
paraclete answered on 04/12/07:you fellows over there talk a load of crap, if you just got on with it instead of getting in the way the job would be done by now | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 04/11/07 - LOL driving directions from New york to London
1. Head southwest on Broadway toward Warren St 0.2 mi
1 min
2. Turn left at Park Row 0.1 mi
1 min
3. Slight right at Frankfort St 0.3 mi
1 min
4. Turn left at Pearl St 56 ft
5. Turn right onto the F.D.R. Dr N ramp 0.4 mi
1 min
6. Merge onto FDR Dr N 7.7 mi
12 mins
7. Take exit 17 on the left for Triboro Bridge/Grand Central Pkwy toward I-278/Bruckner Expy 0.4 mi
2 mins
8. Merge onto Triborough Bridge
Partial toll road 0.4 mi
1 min
9. Merge onto I-278 E via the ramp to I-87 N/Bronx/Upstate N Y/New England 0.6 mi
1 min
10. Take exit 47 to merge onto Bruckner Expy/I-278 E toward New Haven 1.9 mi
2 mins
11. Take the I-278 E exit toward New Haven 0.3 mi
12. Merge onto Bruckner Expy 5.0 mi
6 mins
13. Continue on I-95 N
Partial toll road
Entering Connecticut 62.1 mi
1 hour 12 mins
14. Take exit 48 on the left to merge onto I-91 N toward Hartford 36.8 mi
37 mins
15. Take exit 29 for US-5 N/CT-15 toward I-84/E Hartford/Boston 0.4 mi
16. Merge onto CT-15 N 1.7 mi
2 mins
17. Merge onto I-84 E
Partial toll road
Entering Massachusetts 40.7 mi
38 mins
18. Take the exit onto I-90 E/Mass Pike/Massachusetts Turnpike toward N.H.-Maine/Boston
Partial toll road 56.0 mi
56 mins
19. Take exit 24 A-B-C on the left toward I-93 N/Concord NH/S Station/I-93 S/Quincy 0.4 mi
1 min
20. Merge onto Atlantic Ave 0.8 mi
3 mins
21. Turn right at Central St 0.1 mi
22. Turn right at Long Wharf 0.1 mi
23. Swim across the Atlantic Ocean 3,462 mi
29 days 0 hours
...
24. Slight right at E05 0.5 mi
2 mins
25. At the traffic circle, take the 2nd exit onto E05/Pont Vauban 0.1 mi
26. Turn right at E05 5.7 mi
10 mins
27. Take the exit onto A29/E44 toward Amiens
Toll road 27.8 mi
23 mins
28. Take the exit toward Dieppe/Amiens/Calais/A151/Rouen
Toll road 1.1 mi
1 min
29. Merge onto A29/E44
Toll road 22.6 mi
19 mins
30. Take the exit onto A28/E402 45.6 mi
37 mins
31. Take the exit onto A16/E402 toward Boulogne/Calais
Toll road 44.3 mi
38 mins
32. Take exit 29 toward Boulogne-Centre/Outreau/Le Portel 0.6 mi
1 min
33. Merge onto N416 1.1 mi
1 min
34. At the traffic circle, take the 1st exit onto N1 0.4 mi
1 min
35. At the traffic circle, take the 2nd exit and stay on N1 0.1 mi
1 min
36. At the traffic circle, take the 2nd exit and stay on N1 0.9 mi
2 mins
37. At the traffic circle, take the 1st exit 0.6 mi
1 min
38. Slight left at Rue Ferdinand Farjon 427 ft
39. At the traffic circle, take the 2nd exit 0.4 mi
1 min
40. Slight right at Dover - Boulougne-sur-Mer 30.1 mi
1 hour 50 mins
41. Continue on Dover - Boulogne-sur-Mer 0.2 mi
42. Continue on Eastern Service Rd 0.3 mi
2 mins
43. Turn right at E Ramp 0.4 mi
2 mins
44. Slight right at Dock Exit Rd 0.1 mi
45. At Eastern Docks Roundabout, take the 2nd exit onto A20 0.6 mi
2 mins
46. Slight left to stay on A20 0.3 mi
47. At Prince of Wales Roundabout, take the 2nd exit onto A20/Limekiln St 0.2 mi
1 min
48. At Limekiln Roundabout, take the 3rd exit onto A20 0.3 mi
1 min
49. At Western Heights Roundabout, take the 1st exit and stay on A20 7.0 mi
8 mins
50. Continue on M20 (signs for M20/London/Ashford) 49.7 mi
47 mins
51. Continue on A20 (signs for London (SE)/Lewisham) 9.7 mi
15 mins
52. At Clifton's Roundabout, take the 2nd exit and stay on A20 2.2 mi
6 mins
53. At the traffic circle, take the 2nd exit and stay on A20 1.3 mi
4 mins
54. Slight left at A2 0.7 mi
2 mins
55. Slight right at A2/Kender St 72 ft
56. Turn right at Kender St 0.3 mi
1 min
57. Turn left at A2 1.9 mi
5 mins
58. At Brick Layers Arms, take the 1st exit onto A201/New Kent Rd 0.6 mi
2 mins
59. At the traffic circle, take the 2nd exit onto A302/St George's Rd 0.4 mi
1 min
60. Turn left at A3203/Lambeth Rd 0.6 mi
3 mins
61. At the traffic circle, take the 2nd exit onto A3203 0.2 mi
1 min
62. At Horseferry Rd, take the 3rd exit onto A3212
COMPARED TO
Driving directions from Myrtle Beach, S.C. to San Diego, Ca
1. Head northeast on N Kings Hwy toward 5th Ave N 0.4 mi
1 min
2. Turn left at Main St 0.2 mi
1 min
3. Continue on US-501 14.1 mi
20 mins
...
4. Turn left at US-378 28.8 mi
42 mins
...
5. Slight right at SC-51 29.8 mi
44 mins
...
6. Continue on W Evans St/SC-S-21-31 0.2 mi
1 min
7. Turn left at W David H McLeod Blvd 1.6 mi
3 mins
8. Continue on I-20 W
Passing through Georgia
Entering Alabama 420 mi
6 hours 17 mins
...
9. Take exit 136 for I-459 toward Montgomery/Tuscaloosa/Gadsden 1.1 mi
1 min
10. Merge onto I-459 S 28.5 mi
25 mins
...
11. Take the I-20 W/I-59 S exit toward Tuscaloosa 1.2 mi
1 min
12. Merge onto I-20 W
Passing through Mississippi, Louisiana
Entering Texas 1,084 mi
15 hours 50 mins
...
13. Merge onto I-10 W
Passing through New Mexico
Entering Arizona 542 mi
7 hours 33 mins
...
14. Take exit 199 to merge onto I-8 W toward San Diego
Entering California 336 mi
4 hours 43 mins
...
15. Take the CA-125 S/CA-125 N exit toward CA-94 0.3 mi
16. Keep left at the fork to continue toward CA-125 S and merge onto CA-125 S 2.4 mi
3 mins
17. Continue on CA-94 W (signs for CA-94 W) 8.5 mi
8 mins
18. Exit onto F St 0.7 mi
3 mins
19. Turn right at 9th Ave 0.1 mi
courtousy Google
from shore to shore
62 steps across the ocean
19 across the USA
paraclete answered on 04/11/07:are you raving mad? | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 04/04/07 - need another invention here Tomder inc
We need to invent a comment back recording device that goes DIRECTLY back to a REAL person ASAP!
Yesterday I was at the car wash and noticed that it went up one whole dollar since last summer. Needing the bird poop washed off my windshield I figured what the hey! So I started plopping my quarters in the machine. After EACH and every quarter the machine says, (in a Betty Boop voice) 'Stop, don't hit me. Vandalism is just wrong'. I wanted to comment back, 'YOU are the one vandalizing me charging a whole dollar more for you to annoy me!'
THEN each button I pushed presoak, wash, rinse
it said the same thing 'Stop, don't hit me. Vandalism is just wrong"
I had to have heard that at least 15 times in the whole 2 minute and 54 second amount of my car wash time.
cordially
Tomder inc
CRC
sapph
paraclete answered on 04/04/07:only in america
| | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 04/04/07 - Remember This?
The Pledge of Allegiance:
"I Pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands,
One Nation under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
HANK
paraclete answered on 04/04/07:No how does it go | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 04/03/07 - MEET THE 72 VIRGINS yeah buddy we gottem here
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paraclete answered on 04/04/07:have the Muslims ever considered that if there were 72 virgins for every male muslim to make it to heaven that not very many are going to get there by believing Mudhutmad | | Question/Answer | tropicalstorm asked on 04/02/07 - john travolta
wants us to
conservehere is his house complete with two double garages and room for his five planes.
travoltas planes and excuses )
Clocking up at least 30,000 flying miles in the past 12 months means he has produced an estimated 800 tons of carbon emissions – nearly 100 times the average Briton's tally.
Travolta, a Scientologist, claimed the solution to global warming could be found in outer space and blamed his hefty flying mileage on the nature of the movie business.
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Think we should contribute to the cause??? paraclete answered on 04/02/07:another big mouth who expects others to do the hard yards, pity he couldn't put his money where his mouth is | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 04/01/07 - Good news on Iraq In the form of no news? For the first time I can remember since the Iraq war began, our paper had NO articles on bombings and troops killed today. There were 4 blurbs, Biden and Obama criticizing the war, the UN sending staff back to Baghdad, and an agreement to relocate Arabs that Saddam had moved to Kirkuk to force out Kurds.
Could the tide be turning in the media? Or is it just that global warming has overtaken Iraq as the cause of the day?
paraclete answered on 04/01/07:
Did you miss this one. Old news admittedly for the most part but there nevertheless
Iraq Says Truck Bomb in North Killed 152
Alaa al-Marjani/Associated Press
An Iraqi man with his son, who was wounded Saturday by a blast in Hilla. Bombs also hit two other cities.
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
Published: April 1, 2007
BAGHDAD, March 31 — The Iraqi government on Saturday gave its first official reckoning of the truck bombing Tuesday in the northern city of Tal Afar, putting the death toll at 152 people, a number about double that in early reports.
The bombing, which left 347 other people in a poor Shiite neighborhood wounded, set off a wave of reprisals by Shiite policemen and others that left another 47 people dead and shattered the image of Tal Afar held up by American politicians last year as a model of a turbulent city turned peaceful.
When the bomb detonated, younger Shiite policemen “were motivated by emotions when they saw their parents and siblings getting killed, but this is not acceptable,†Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf said Saturday. He said that 16 policemen and 2 civilians were under arrest and would be fully prosecuted for the reprisals.
Sectarian violence continued around Iraq on Saturday, when 27 people were killed in shootings and car bombings and 10 bodies were found in Baghdad, according to the Interior Ministry. In Gabala, near Hilla, Shiite militiamen killed two people at a Sunni mosque and then burned Sunni stores in retaliation for the killing of the brother of a Mahdi Army militia leader. The Iraqi Army intervened to stop the attack on the mosque, said a member of Scorpion Brigade, a commando unit in Babil Province.
The car bombings were in the Shiite district of Sadr City in Baghdad; in Hilla; and in the northern town of Tuzkhormato, south of Kirkuk. Also, eight civilians who worked on an Iraqi Army base in the town of Hawija, in northern Iraq, were shot to death, and in Salahiddin Province, eight policemen were killed.
In the Interior Ministry’s first news conference since the bombing, officials underscored the event’s scale and horror. “It is a very painful attack,†General Khalaf said.
If the death toll of 152 in the Tal Afar attack is correct, it was the highest total from a single bomb in the four-year-old war.
A number of causes may have contributed to the large increase in the reported deaths: some of the wounded later died; some victims were taken to hospitals outside Tal Afar and were not immediately counted; and some bodies were retrieved at the scene by family members, preventing the deaths from being recorded.
The Interior Ministry, which has been accused of bias toward Shiites and of having groups within it associated with Shiite militias and death squads, is now under a new minister, Jawad al-Bolani.
General Khalaf, who runs the Interior Ministry’s National Command Center, which tracks attacks across Iraq, said: “The prime minister and the minister of interior ordered an investigative committee to go to Tal Afar and take the proper steps and bring the guilty to justice. The committee did its work and there are 18 guilty who did kill innocent citizens and they were arrested and will be brought to justice.â€
The truck bombing destroyed 100 houses and many shops in the neighborhood, which is a poor district with ramshackle construction, officials said. When the huge bomb went off, little could stand up to it. “When it exploded, it left a 23-meter crater in the ground, and that tells us that it had two tons of explosives,†General Khalaf said.
The city has about 200,000 residents, mostly Turkmen, ethnically related to the people of Turkmenistan in Central Asia. In Tal Afar, the population is split between Sunnis and Shiites, with a somewhat higher proportion of Shiites.
It is a poor area, and the suicide bomber took advantage of the city’s deprivation to lure people to his truck, which carried flour as well as explosives, officials said. The bomber also benefited from mistakes by the soldiers responsible for checking all vehicles entering the city for bombs.
“It was a truck loaded with flour,†General Khalaf said. “They had not gotten flour for some time, and when the truck came in, it was searched hurriedly by the army checkpoint, and the TNT was mixed in with the flour and the electrical circuit was sophisticated. The checkpoint troops did not have enough experience to find it.â€
Also Saturday, the justice minister, Hashim al-Shibli, resigned. Mr. Shibli, a member of the secular National Democratic Party, had fallen out of favor with the Iraqi List, a party that had supported his appointment and controls the position.
A government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said that the replacement of Mr. Shibli had already been planned as part of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s reorganization of positions in the ministry.
Khalid Hassan and Hosham Hussein contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Baghdad, Hilla and Kirkuk.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I would say the news on any given day is not an indicator of anything but the news on that day. Now if Iraq had been free of such incidents for a month?
| | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 03/31/07 - Fact-finding? The leader of the US House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in coming days will visit Syria, a country President George W. Bush has shunned as a state sponsor of terrorism, despite being asked by the administration not to go.
"In our view, it is not the right time to have these sort of high-profile visitors to Syria," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters Friday.
Pelosi will not be the first member of Congress in recent months to travel to Syria, but as House speaker she is the most senior.
"This is a country that is a state sponsor of terror, one that is trying to disrupt the Saniora government in Lebanon and one that is allowing foreign fighters to flow into Iraq from its borders," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi, arrived in Israel on Friday on her second fact-finding trip to the Middle East since she took over in January.
Among those in her delegation is Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim member of Congress. Others traveling with Pelosi include Rep. Tom Lantos, the Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The group planned to meet with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and to travel to the West Bank to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said Ellison's spokesman, Rick Jauert.
The speaker plans to address the Israeli Knesset on Sunday in what will be her first address to a foreign government legislature and as the highest ranking American woman to speak before the Israeli parliament, according to Pelosi's office.
She is expected to discuss "America's commitment to Israel and the challenges facing the two nations in the Middle East," according to a statement.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Just curious here, what 'facts' is Pelosi hoping to find - traveling to Syria with "the first Muslim" in congress no less? Yes, congressmen take these 'fact-finding' missions all the time, but is anyone besides me concerned this congress is trying to subvert the President's foreign policy? paraclete answered on 04/01/07:surely you know about fact finding that is where you discover the facts that support your position, it is never about finding facts that might change your mind. in any case a nice medeterranian holiday with a side trip to the Holy Land | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 03/31/07 - The John Doe Manifesto By Michelle Malkin
Note: Earlier this month, six publicity-seeking imams filed a federal lawsuit against US Airways and the Metropolitan Airports Commission in Minneapolis/St. Paul. The Muslim clerics were removed from their flight last November and questioned for several hours after their suspicious behavior alarmed both passengers and crew members. Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten reported last week that the imams, advised by the grievance-mongers at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, also plan to sue "John Does" — innocent bystanders who alerted the authorities about their security concerns. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., has introduced legislation to protect John Does who report suspicious behavior from legal liability. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty; talk show host Michael Reagan; Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, who heads the American Islamic Forum for Democracy; and Minnesota lawyer Gerry Nolting have all stepped forward to offer free representation to the imams' targets.
Dear Muslim Terrorist Plotter/Planner/Funder/Enabler/Apologist,
You do not know me. But I am on the lookout for you. You are my enemy. And I am yours.
I am John Doe.
I am traveling on your plane. I am riding on your train. I am at your bus stop. I am on your street. I am in your subway car. I am on your lift.
I am your neighbor. I am your customer. I am your classmate. I am your boss.
I am John Doe.
I will never forget the example of the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 who refused to sit back on 9/11 and let themselves be murdered in the name of Islam without a fight.
I will never forget the passengers and crew members who tackled al Qaeda shoe-bomber Richard Reid on American Airlines Flight 63 before he had a chance to blow up the plane over the Atlantic Ocean.
I will never forget the alertness of actor James Woods, who notified a stewardess that several Arab men sitting in his first-class cabin on an August 2001 flight were behaving strangely. The men turned out to be 9/11 hijackers on a test run.
I will act when homeland security officials ask me to "report suspicious activity."
I will embrace my local police department's admonition: "If you see something, say something."
I am John Doe.
I will protest your Jew-hating, America-bashing "scholars."
I will petition against your hate-mongering mosque leaders.
I will raise my voice against your subjugation of women and religious minorities.
I will challenge your attempts to indoctrinate my children in our schools.
I will combat your violent propaganda on the Internet.
I am John Doe.
I will support law enforcement initiatives to spy on your operatives, cut off your funding and disrupt your murderous conspiracies.
I will oppose all attempts to undermine our borders and immigration laws.
I will resist the imposition of sharia principles and sharia law in my taxi cab, my restaurant, my community pool, the halls of Congress, our national monuments, the radio and television airwaves, and all public spaces.
I will not be censored in the name of tolerance.
I will not be cowed by your Beltway lobbying groups in moderates' clothing. I will not cringe when you shriek about "profiling" or "Islamophobia."
I will put my family's safety above sensitivity. I will put my country above multiculturalism.
I will not submit to your will. I will not be intimidated.
I am John Doe.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Very timely in light of Tom's EU post I think. I won't back down, and you? paraclete answered on 04/01/07:as I have said before, these people belong one place and one place only and we should see they stay there. I am quite content to stay in my country and leave the rest of the world alone, why is it that they cannot? | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 03/30/07 - EU is the first 2 letters in Eurabia The EU begins it's 2nd 50 years by celebrating one of the finest traditions of Europe that made the EU possible ........appeasement.
The European Union has drawn up guidelines advising government spokesmen to refrain from linking Islam and terrorism in their statements.
Brussels officials have confirmed the existence of a classified handbook which offers "non-offensive" phrases to use when announcing anti-terrorist operations or dealing with terrorist attacks.
Banned terms are said to include "jihad", "Islamic" or "fundamentalist".
One alternative, suggested publicly last year, is for the term "Islamic terrorism" to be replaced by "terrorists who abusively invoke Islam".
An EU official said that the secret guidebook, or, "common lexicon", is aimed at preventing the distortion of the Muslim faith and the alienation of Muslims in Europe.
This while they continue to celebrate their 50 years together by demonstrating a feeble weak lame (fill in the adjective) response to one of their fellow nation's sailors being kidnapped by the pirate regime of Iran. While the EU did nothing for over a week now ;these sailors have been forced to make confessions and other acts of public humiliation broadcast around the world . Where is there rapid response force ? What does this say to their strawman concept of "soft power" ? They talk a good game about unity but when one of their members needs their help they won't commit a dinghy to the effort .
They cowered and capitulated when rioters objected to the publishing of harmless cartoons . Now they may as well cut out their tongues for all the good it does them . These are our allies . We really are alone.
paraclete answered on 03/30/07:why do we care what a bunch of irrelevant dills do in Europe, It isn't called old Europe for nothing | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 03/27/07 - Hide the pork this is a "what a suprise !! "moment
According to John Fund at the Wall Street Journal ;the Congressional Research Service (CRS)...a publicly funded, nonpartisan federal agency has decided that after 12 years it will no longer track earmarks put into Congressional spending bills .This after a 12 year run of doing so.
What event happened 12 years ago? Well ...12 years ago the Republicans became the majority .Now they are no longer the majority so obviously pork spending is no longer a concern. paraclete answered on 03/27/07:what a pecular system of government where the purpose of legislation can be subverted for other purposes. What you need is a truth in legislation bill or a true budget | | Question/Answer | | PrinceHassim asked on 03/26/07 - Iraq. I told you it was a civil war and ye believed me not!
Since al-Qaeda bombed one of the most important Shiite shrines in Iraq 13 months ago, tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed and whole neighborhoods have undergone sectarian cleansing. The bombing caused the once-relatively quiescent Shiite community to rise up in a campaign of revenge.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq said 34,452 Iraqis died last year alone.
Perhaps the American war of independence was nothing but an insurgency. Mel Gibson fought in it in the patriot and he and his militia wore farm clothes not military uniform.
Being a prophet is a hard calling. Ho hum! paraclete answered on 03/27/07:I agreed with you, it is a civil war, somewhat low key but a civil war, different factions fighting against each other and the government, Just because it doesn't look like the american civil war doesn't change the facts, large numbers are dying and being displaced. American troops have solved nothing and even fueled the war. And yes at it's inception the american civil war was an insurgency, the only reason it is an example is that it was successful and the only reason it was successful was that the British lacked the wit and will to win it. From what I have seen of the american history a well armed and led force should have overrun the american forces | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 03/22/07 - gores words of wisdom There's only one Earth, Gore said. "We don't have a spare…we don't have an operating manual."
Our planet has a rising fever, Gore said. "If the crib catches fire you don't say: ‘Hmmm, how fast is that crib going to burn? Has it ever burned before? Is my baby flame retardant?'"
paraclete answered on 03/22/07:let's face it, Gore is right, the Earth is getting hotter, what is at question is; what outcomes will it cause and when? The evidence is clear; glaciers are receding, open water in the Artic.
What to do about it is entirely another question, however, reduction in the deforestation of the Earth and reduction in burning of fossel fuels can only help | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 03/20/07 - Changing tactics? Children used in Iraqi militant attack-US general
WASHINGTON, March 20 (Reuters) - A U.S. general on Tuesday said Iraqi insurgents used children in a suicide attack this weekend, raising worries that the insurgency has adopted a new tactic to get through security checkpoints with bombs.
Maj. Gen. Michael Barbero, deputy director for regional operations in the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, said adults in a vehicle with two children in the backseat were allowed through a Baghdad checkpoint. The adults then abandoned the vehicle and detonated it with the children still inside, he said.
"Children in the back seat, lower suspicion, we let it move through," he said. "They parked the vehicle, the adults run out and detonate it with the children in the back."
"The brutality and ruthless nature of this enemy hasn't changed," Barbero said.
The general called that incident a new tactic, but noted U.S. forces had only seen one such occurrence involving children.
The use of chemical bombings has increased and become a tool of the insurgency, as the three chlorine bombs detonated this past weekend brought the total to six such bombings since January, the general said.
"High-profile" suicide and car bomb attacks by Sunnis against Shi'ites also have not abated, Barbero said.
But he said increased force in Iraq's capital had yielded some success, such as a reduction in murders and executions of civilians. He also said hundreds of families have returned to Baghdad and the number of tips from Iraqi civilians about insurgent activity hit its highest mark ever in February.
So these heartless, gutless terrorists would sacrifice children while saving their own sorry selves. They want you and your children next...paraclete answered on 03/20/07:and there are people on these boards who wonder why muslims disgust me | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 03/19/07 - Pessimism 'growing among Iraqis' BBC's take in part on this poll of over 2000 Iraqis:
A new survey carried out in Iraq suggests people are becoming increasingly pessimistic about the future and unhappy about their lives.
Less than 40% of those polled said things were good in their lives, compared to 71% two years ago.
The Guardian:
Almost nine in 10 Iraqis fear they or a family member could become a victim of violence, a poll released a day before the fourth anniversary of the US-led attack on the country indicated today.
The survey of more than 2,200 Iraqis showed 86% were concerned about the prospect of someone in their household being a victim of violence, while only 5% said they worried "hardly at all" about it.
There was very little trust in US and British troops, with 86% of those polled saying they had no confidence in them.
al-AP:
The optimism that helped sustain Iraqis during the first few years of the war has dissolved into widespread fear, anger and distress amid unrelenting violence, a survey found.
The poll -- the third in Iraq since early 2004 by ABC News and media partners -- draws a stark portrait of an increasingly pessimistic population under great emotional stress.
Reuters:
Only 18 percent of Iraqis have confidence in U.S.-led forces and about 86 percent are concerned about someone in their household being a victim of violence, according to a survey published by the BBC on Monday.
The poll of more than 2,000 people indicated Iraqis have become less optimistic about their future compared to a similar survey in 2005 when respondents were generally hopeful, the BBC said.
What they aren't reporting in the poll (pdf):
A majority, 42% believe their children will have a better life.
61% have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in the Iraqi army, and 64% for the Iraqi police.
The majority, 38% have no confidence in the local militia, 26% "not very much."
The majority, 43%, still believe democracy is best for Iraq now, 53% believe it best for Iraq 5 years from now, and 53% believe Iraq WILL have a democracy 5 years from now.
In spite of the majority opposing the presence of coalition forces, they also want coalition forces to remain until security is better:
Remain until security is restored - 38%
Remain until the Iraqi government is stronger - 14%
Remain until the Iraqi security forces can operate independently - 11%
Remain longer but leave eventually - 2%
Never leave - 1%
94% believe dividing along sectarian lines is a bad thing.
81% are satisfied living in their location in the country, 70% are satisfied living in Iraq.
In addition to 56% believing Iraq is not in a civil war, the majority believe there will NOT be a civil war in Iraq, 46% somehwat unlikely and 11% very unlikely.
In spite of the majority believing the US is the problem in Iraq, 66% believe Syria is "actively engaged in encouraging sectarian violence within Iraq," 71% for Iran and 56% for Saudi Arabia.
What else they didn't report, another poll:
Resilient Iraqis ask what civil war?
DESPITE sectarian slaughter, ethnic cleansing and suicide bombs, an opinion poll conducted on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq has found a striking resilience and optimism among the inhabitants.
The poll, the biggest since coalition troops entered Iraq on March 20, 2003, shows that by a majority of two to one, Iraqis prefer the current leadership to Saddam Hussein’s regime, regardless of the security crisis and a lack of public services.
The survey, published today, also reveals that contrary to the views of many western analysts, most Iraqis do not believe they are embroiled in a civil war.
Officials in Washington and London are likely to be buoyed by the poll conducted by Opinion Research Business (ORB), a respected British market research company that funded its own survey of 5,019 Iraqis over the age of 18.
...the sense of security felt by Baghdad residents had significantly improved since polling carried out before the US announced in January that it was sending in a “surge†of more than 20,000 extra troops...
...49% of those questioned preferred life under Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, to living under Saddam. Only 26% said things had been better in Saddam’s era...A survey conducted by ORB in September last year found that only 29% of Iraqis had a favourable opinion of the prime minister.
...64% of Iraqis still want to see a united Iraq under a central national government...
...Many said they were starting to feel more secure on the streets...
...The inhabitants of a northern Baghdad district were heartened to see on the concrete blocks protecting an Iraqi army checkpoint the lettering: “Down, down with the militias, we are fighting for the sake of Iraq.â€
No need to wonder why the MSM didn't report on that poll instead...paraclete answered on 03/19/07:if you had had four years of someone bombing the crap out of you you would be pessimistic too, particularly when it wasn't necessary | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 03/19/07 - when will we hear the truth about dry runs I keep hearing stories of dry runs like the other day the latest one I heard is a guy carrying metal bomb making devices in his rectum
and today the Pittsburgh airport found threatening letters
http://warroom.com/ )
ABOUT THOSE IMAMS
By RICHARD MINITER
THE notorious case of U.S. Airways Flight 300 gets stranger by the minute, as more facts emerge about why six traveling Muslim clerics were asked to deplane. A passenger on that flight - I'll call her "Pauline" - has inadvertently publicized some facts via a much-forwarded e-mail; she gave me more details in an interview this week. The airport police report confirms some of her claims and holds more revelations of its own. And U.S. Airways spokeswoman Andrea Rader also confirmed much of Pauline's account.
One detail that's escaped most reports is that other Muslim passengers were left undisturbed and later joined in a round of applause for the U.S. Airways crew. "It wasn't that they were Muslim," says Pauline. "It was all of the suspicious things they did." Sitting by Minneapolis-St. Paul's Airport Gate C9, she noticed one imam immediately. "He was pacing nervously, talking in Arabic," she said.
As the plane boarded, she said, no one refused to fly. The public prayers and an Arabic phone call triggered no alarms. But then a note from a passenger about suspicious movements of the imams got the crew's attention. To Pauline, everything seemed normal. Then the captain - in classic laconic pilot-style - announced there had been a "mix-up in our paperwork" and that the flight would be delayed.
In reality, the crew was waiting for the FBI and local police to arrive.
Contrary to press accounts that a single note from a passenger triggered the imams' removal, Captain John Howard Wood was weighing multiple factors.
* An Arabic speaker was seated near two of the imams in the plane's tail. That passenger pulled a flight attendant aside and, in a whisper, translated what the men were saying: invoking "bin Laden" and condemning America for "killing Saddam," according to police reports.
* An imam seated in first class asked for a seat-belt extender - the extra strap that obese people use because the standard belt is too short. According to both an on-duty and a deadheading flight attendant, he looked too thin to need one. A seat-belt extender can easily be used as a weapon - just wrap one end around your fist, and swing the heavy metal buckle.
* All six imams had boarded together, with the first-class passengers - even though only one of them had a first-class ticket. Three had one-way tickets. Between the six men, only one had checked a bag.
And, Pauline said, they spread out - just like the 9/11 hijackers. Two sat in first class, two in the middle and two back in the economy section, police reports show. Some, according to Rader, took seats not assigned to them.
* Finally, a gate attendant told the captain she was suspicious of the imams, according to police reports.
So the captain made his decision to delay the flight based on many complaints, not one. He also consulted a federal air marshal, a U.S. Airways ground-security coordinator and the airline's security office in Phoenix. All thought the imams were acting suspiciously, Rader told me.
One more odd thing went unnoticed at the time: The men prayed both at the gate and on the plane. Yet observant Muslims pray only once at sundown, not twice.
"It was almost as if they were intentionally trying to get kicked off the flight," Pauline said.
While the imams were soon released, Pauline is fuming: "We are the victims of these people. They need to be more sensitive to us. They were totally insensitive to us and then accused us of being insensitive to them."
The flight was delayed for some 31/2 hours. Bomb-sniffing dogs swept the plane, and every passenger got re-screened.
"I think it was either a foiled attempt to take over the plane or it was a publicity stunt to accuse us of being insensitive," Pauline told me. "It had to be to intimidate U.S. Airways to ease up on security."
So far, U.S. Airways refuses to be intimidated, even though the feds have launched an investigation. "We are absolutely backing this crew," Rader said.
Tucked away in the police report is this little gem: One imam had complained to a passenger that some nations don't follow sharia law and had said his job in Bakersfield, Calif., was a cover for "representing Muslims here in the U.S."
What are the imams really up to? Something more than praying, it seems.
Some argue that these Imans behaved this way in hopes that they would be deplaned. Once deplaned, they could yell discrimination. Others, like contributor to "The Aviation Nation", Annie Jacobsen, would argue that it is distinctly possible that they were practicing a dry run. That they may have wanted to see just how much they could get away with for a jihad attempt further on down the line. Annie makes a good argument for dry runs; the jihadists have been known to make several attempts on one target before they get it right. For example, Annie sites; "The recent dry run or probe on American Airlines flight 63 occurred on a flight that has already been saved once from a terrorist attack by the heroics of flight crew and passengers. If you recall, it was American Airlines flight 63 that "shoe bomber" Richard Reid tried to take down with explosives hidden in his shoes, in December of 2001". Click here to read her article
When it comes right down to it, I think that both arguments are quite right. While the Imans could have been hoping to make a cry of discrimination -- it doesn't negate the idea that, on it's own -- that, too, is a form of a dry run. It really is the perfect plan isn't it? Cry discrimination now on a "dry run" so that later, when they are fully prepared to execute another attack -- they are assured that their plan would go uninterrupted because we have become conditioned to be sensitive. We are learning that a Muslim passenger can do what the rest of us can not -- make those around us uncomfortable. Remember the story of the woman who became "claustrophobic" on the British flight? She had to be overcome by her fellow passengers and escorted off of the plane.
The reason she was escorted off the plane was because she made others on the plane uncomfortable by her behavior. That was o.k. because she was a white female. But, if an Arab-looking, loudly praying, Muslim who's behavior is questionable, should make you uncomfortable, you'd better just shake that feeling off as a discriminating thought.
While shaking it off -- we've once again made ourselves easy targets. Or, as "Pauline" would say; "we are the victims". paraclete answered on 03/19/07:do you really think anyone is going to tell you the truth. Mustn't alarm the travelling public, you know. | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 03/18/07 - the republican & the democrat & the homeless person
A Republican and a Democrat were walking down the street when they came to a homeless person. The Republican gave the homeless person his business card and told him to come to his business for a job. He then took twenty dollars out of his pocket and gave it to the homeless person.
The Democrat was very impressed, and when they came to another homeless person, he decided to help. He walked over to the homeless person and gave him directions to the welfare office. He then reached into the Republican's pocket and got out twenty dollars. He kept $15 for administrative fees and gave the homeless person five.
paraclete answered on 03/18/07:it's true that socialists and fellow travellers always offer a solution that involves someoneelse paying | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 03/18/07 - just in time for tax season Dear Internal Revenue Service:
Enclosed you will find my 2006 tax return, showing that I owe $3,407.00 in taxes.
Please note the article from the "USA Today" newspaper dated 12 November, wherein you will see the Pentagon (Department of Defense) is paying $171.50 per hammer, and NASA has paid $600.00 per toilet seat.
I am enclosing four (4) toilet seats (valued @ $2,400.) and six (6) hammers (valued @ $1,029.), which I secured at Home Depot, bringing my total remittance to $3,429.00. Please apply the overpayment of $22.00 to the "Presidential Election Fund," as noted on my return. You can do this inexpensively by sending them one (1) 1.5" Phillips Head screwdriver, (see aforementioned article from USA Today newspaper detailing how H.U.D. pays $22.00 each for 1.5" Phillips Head screwdrivers). One (1) screw is enclosed for your convenience.
It has been a pleasure to pay my tax bill this year, and I look forward to paying it again next year.
Sincerely,
A Satisfied Taxpayer paraclete answered on 03/18/07:Hmmm, now how does Donald or Bill pay taxes by this standard. All the toilet seats on american couldn't pay his bill | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 03/12/07 - on gun ruling I heard that the court ruling opposing the second amendment citizens right to bear arms was it is a state right and not an individual right
BELLEVUE, WA – A ruling Friday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that strikes down the District’s 1976 handgun ban and holds that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms is “a landmark for liberty, and an affirmation that everything the gun rights community has been saying for years is correct,†the Second Amendment Foundation said today.
The 2-1 ruling came in the case of Parker v. District of Columbia. Senior Judge Laurence H. Silberman wrote the opinion, with Judge Thomas B. Griffith concurring. Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson dissented. The ruling holds that the District’s long-standing ban on carrying a pistol in the home for personal protection is unconstitutional. SAF filed an amicus brief in the case.
In his ruling, Judge Silberman wrote, “In sum, the phrase ‘the right of the people,’ when read intratextually and in light of Supreme Court precedent, leads us to conclude that the right in question is individual.â€
“This is a huge victory for firearm civil rights,†said SAF founder Alan M. Gottlieb. “It shreds the so-called ‘collective right theory’ of gun control proponents, and squarely puts the Second Amendment where it has always belonged, as a protection of the individual citizen’s right to have a firearm for personal defense.â€
Judge Silberman’s ruling notes that the Second Amendment “acknowledges…a right that pre-existed the Constitution like ‘the freedom of speech’.â€
“Because the right to arms existed prior to the formation of the new government,†Judge Silberman wrote, “the Second Amendment only guarantees that the right ‘shall not be infringed’.â€
Silberman’s ruling also observed, “The right of self-preservation…was understood as the right to defend oneself against attacks by lawless individuals, or, if absolutely necessary, to resist and throw off a tyrannical government.â€
“Judge Silberman’s ruling,†Gottlieb said, “reverses 31 years of unconstitutional infringement on the rights of District of Columbia residents, not only to keep and bear arms, but to be safe and secure in their own homes. This is a ruling that should make all citizens proud that we live in a nation where the rights of individual citizens trump political correctness.â€
The ruling may be viewed at: http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/docs/common/opinions/200703/04-7041a.pdf
SAF has also mirrored the decision on our site at http://www.saf.org/dc.lawsuit/parker.decision.pdf
The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nations oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 600,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control. SAF has previously funded successful firearms-related suits against the cities of Los Angeles; New Haven, CT; and San Francisco on behalf of American gun owners, a lawsuit against the cities suing gun makers and an amicus brief and fund for the Emerson case holding the Second Amendment as an individual right. paraclete answered on 03/13/07:oh good let's hope the citizens of rivercity use their guns wisely and shoot the first bush they see | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 03/12/07 - Capitalism 3.0? Long read but worth it...
Gore Funding Plan For "A New World Order"
If your employer began paying you 80 cents on the dollar, but, not to worry, the other 20 cents was going to support "good causes", thereby giving you value instead of capital, would you be pleased?
If not, you won't like what Al Gore has been quietly planning along with his Global Warming initiative. He and others are working to achieve that very thing and to bring it about in a manner which doesn't give you a vote in which values your dollars end up supporting.
Gore is quietly funding an assault on Capitalism as we know it, one that begins but doesn't end with Global Warming. That's only the model for what's coming next.
Sans news conferences and Oscar nods, it's a well-funded, grand design to re-shape, not just America, but the global economy in such a manner so as to inculcate Liberal values into the world's system of finance.
Defeated at the ballot box, it seems Gore has figured out that if he can follow, or perhaps even lead the money, he and other liberals can bring about the social and economic change they want, whether the middle class likes it, or not.
Gone unnoticed in the recent controversy over Gore's Generation Investment Management LLP (GIM) is this blurb below from the European partnership's web site:
Dedicated to thought leadership on sustainability and capital markets -5% of our profitability is allocated to the Generation Foundation
The Generation Foundation is not your typical foundation involved in giving money to what it views as deserving causes. And the ramifications of its work should be of genuine concern for fiscal and social conservatives, civil libertarians and anyone who supports the free market system and the economics, or laisser-faire capitalism of Milton Friedman.
By their own admission, Gore and his well-heeled, high-minded brand of liberal thinkers believe Capitalism is either dead, or deserves to be. Here's the first quick look at a now Gore supported and funded, self-proclaimed New World Order as ruminated upon back in 2002.
Above all, the man is wondering whether Americans need to pause for a moment, now that the millennium has turned and the market has crashed and corporate ethics seem like the quaint idea of a bygone era. And then, after this pause, the man wonders if we need to think long and hard about what we want and how money -- and, in particular, value -- figures into the arc of our lives.
He has come up with an idea that admittedly might not solve any of our financial and social ills, but that he hopes might solve quite a few of them.
The man's name is Jed Emerson. And his idea is called the "blended value" proposition.
Jed Emerson used to spend his afternoons walking into shooting galleries to dispense clean needles and condoms in San Francisco's Tenderloin district and now lecture(s) to the most powerful business leaders on the planet. (emphasis mine)
Those facts aren't inserted to disparage Emerson's work, but to highlight precisely the brand of social values Gore wants to build into our economic system so that they are realized though a non-democratic system controlled by wealth, as opposed to votes. And conservatism's good friend George Soros is linked to the work, as well.
Gore's foundation has employed the now well-credential-ed Emerson as their first senior research fellow.
Jed Emerson is the first Generation Foundation Senior Fellow. Learn more about his body of work on Blended Value.
Additional Link: Jed Emerson Wants To Change The World His goal: a kind of capitalist utopia in which sound business practices are rewarded, shareholders are empowered and our portfolios do more than just make money.
GIM is based in Europe, that's fitting, as Gore's plans for the American economy appear to be based more on socialist European values than America's. Actually, the effort is much larger than Gore and impossible to paint as anything other than the fiscal championing of an extreme Left wing ideology: Capitalism 3.0.
In Capitalism 3.0, Peter Barnes redefines the debate about the costs and benefits of the operating system known as the free market. Despite clunky features, early versions of capitalism were somewhat successful. The current model, however, is packed with proprietary features that benefit a lucky few while threatening to crash the system for everyone else. Far from being "free," the market is accessible only to huge corporations that reap the benefits while passing the costs on to the consumer. Barnes maps out a better way. Drawn from his own career as a highly successful entrepreneur.
Really? But wait. I thought Capitalism 3.0 was the conceptualization of Gore's minion Emerson?
Capitalism 3.0 February/March 2006
by Jed Emerson and Sheila Bonini
Originally published as part of the Blended Value Map and a chapter in the book series The Accountable Corporation
And who is Peter Barnes?
Peter Barnes, founder of Working Assets and a board member at the Tomales Bay Institute's On The Commons
You might recall my post on Working Assets, the Leftist publishing company that plucked Glenn Greenwald out of the blogosphere to publish a hastily written book to bash Bush and oppose the Patriot Act. Their financial backing links them to the Phoenix Group, does the name George Soros ring a bell? It isn't me making these connections, it's the New York Times.
To understand the financial connections that can now be documented, you'll also want to understand the Phoenix Group (PG), as reported on here in The Hill, and in depth through the New York Times, Wiring the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy, July 2004. Wealthy associates of the group have been propping up the Netroots movement, enjoying the cachet of a ground up grass roots movement that's actually financed and, I'd argue, controlled from the top down by big money, just as is most all contemporary politics. The Times piece is an absolute must read.
Some of the key PG players, though far from all, are Howard Dean, George Soros, Simon Rosenberg, Andy Rappaport, and SEIU President Andy Stern.
Take a moment and process that. Some of the very same individuals, now well networked, can almost immediately launch a New York Times best seller written by an all but unreadable blogger, a book intended to attack Bush and defeat the Patriot Act; meanwhile the same individuals are drawing a road map for the US economy based upon a self-labeled Utopian neo-capitalist ideology. Scary? It should be, as the Right has not kept up.
This is not a battle to be won or lost tomorrow, or even next year. It's a battle conservatives and libertarians must understand and engage over the next decade if they wish to prevail.
Now that we understand who would design this new values-based economic system Gore and his Leftist buddies have in mind, it's important to understand the notion behind Blended Value. Building moral or social value into our economic system may sound nice, but whose values? Who gets to decide? Not you. The system only works provided the society marches in lockstep on difficult choices. In Gore's proposed system, decisions don't flow from the bottom up, as with democracy. They flow from the top down with the money.
If Gore has his way, the wealthiest of the world, those who invest and support corporations in the largest measure, get to decide how everyone gets to live, what causes are supported, or dropped. And he has the nerve to call it freedom? It's not even close.
Corporate valuation based upon social and moral judgments means one could devise a better mouse trap, one that every body wants, but if it doesn't measure up within some grand Utopian plan, it's corporate valuation will always be sub par, so it would not attract the type of investment required to launch. What happens to choice? You can't choose to buy, or not buy, that which never gets built.
And what of the cost of building these social and moral values into our system of economics? Given what we have seen from Gore and other elitists preaching Global Warming, while preparing to preach social values, do you think the seven and eight figure salaried elite are going to do the sacrificing? You can call social programs value, they still cost money in the end.
Man2 The result of such a system would be upward pressure on prices and downward pressure on wages as profitability declines. In Gore's developing system, the middle class will pay the price for the implementation of a left wing, liberal-socialist agenda - and they will never even be asked to vote on whether to do it, or not. Gore's efforts regarding Global Warming establish precisely that paradigm. There's no telling where they'll go next.
For maximum valuation, will a corporation need to plant trees? build abortion clinics? pass out hypodermics, as one of its authors once did? Whose to say? Not you or me, that much is clear.
In short, what globally thinking socialists like Soros, and now Gore, have not been able to achieve through America's ballot box, they would seek to impose on our economic system. If you think I'm crazy, take a look at one of Gore's tracts. Both the illustrations and the text remind one more of the Eastern Block than the freedom we've come to know as Americans.
It’s time for capitalism to mutate again. We’re due. Here’s why: “Release 1.0†— the original model — created not only wealth, but also a blizzard of economic, social, and environmental costs. In succeeding in its mission, it also exploited the world’s resources and peoples as if there were no tomorrow.
“Release 2.0†— evolving since the late 1960s — has been increasingly regulated and “civilized†as it has attempted to keep pace with increasing awareness of its costly “side effects.†But Release 2.0 has hit a plateau in its efforts to build wealth and at the same time make deposits in the bank of social value.
Layering regulations over regulations, and social initiatives over more social initiatives, just isn’t going to result in the hoped-for economic, social, and environmental returns. The problem is that even the most forward-thinking corporations are still driven by a mindset that is obsolete.
What’s needed is the next iteration of capitalism — a new model that stems from an understanding that our common goal should be to maximize our value potential. The model should be based on a common understanding of what value is (to our minds, it should be a blend of economic, environmental, and social factors). And, it should be implemented with the common understanding that maximizing value, regardless of whether one is the “customer of†or the “investor in†the entity, requires taking all three elements into account.
Capitalism 3.0, as we’re calling it, represents an opportunity to break existing frameworks and create a model of accountability that addresses the realities of the world we’re living in.
Read the other publications if you wish, they make it very clear. And Global Warming is only the beginning, albeit a critically important one. If Gore has his way, if we alter our economics to address his over-heated fear of Global Warming, we will be walking on the very path Gore and Soros and whomever else wants, while putting money in their pockets to fund their agenda. It's a path to the ruination of a free America, not some cure.
As Friedman knew, in capitalism money is freedom. If Gore and his new found European friends succeed in controlling our money while selling us on the concept of greater value through support for social programs of their liking, not necessarily ours - it won't be freedom, or Capitalism 3.0, it'll be a sham akin to Socialism from which America may never recover.
The current Global Warming debate is only the beginning, not the end. Just ask Gore, after all, it's his plan. If you think it isn't critical to push back, or tread carefully around global warming, you may want to think again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We're already seeing significant appearances of this "blended value" concept with the recent corporate alliance, it's no longer just a Ben & Jerry thing. Public schools are pushing the global warming agenda on our kids, not to mention exploiting them. Climate change was the cover story in last week's Sports Illustrated:
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With the help of some university professor, SI speculated that if it would have been one degree warmer, Vic Wertz' smash hit in game 1 of the 1954 world series would have glanced off of Willie Mays fingertips (and I wondered if it were 1 degree cooler would it have bounced off his wrist?).
The global warming scam is coming at us from every angle, in education, economics, politics - and golf courses, ski slopes and ballparks. What are you going to do? paraclete answered on 03/13/07:what a load of convoluted crap | | Question/Answer | tropicalstorm asked on 03/12/07 - HERE ARE A BUNCH OF
VIDEOS ON TERRORISMHAVEN'T HAD TIME TO WATCH THEM MYSELF
yahoo page ) paraclete answered on 03/13/07:don't ask us to watch things you haven't watched yourself | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 03/10/07 - THEY BAGGED BAGHDADI The Iraqi gvt. says they've arrrested thehead of the 'Islamic State of Iraq'(ISI), Abu Omar al-Baghdadi (Who's your BagDadhi?) in a raid of Abu Ghraib.http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-03-09-al-baghdadi_N.htm?POE=NEWISVA
The reported arrest followed rumors this week that al-Baghdadi's brother had been arrested in a raid near Tikrit....
Unlike al-Zarqawi, virtually nothing is known of al-Baghdadi, including his real name. It is widely assumed that the name al-Baghdadi was taken as part of a campaign to make al-Qaeda appear more of a homegrown Iraqi movement rather than an organization dominated by foreigners.
Al-AP is deeply saddened by the news.
The ISI is another of those groups that feed from al -Qaeda and Iran (so much for the Shia and Sunni not cooperating ).Did I happen to mention the capture took place at Abu Ghraib ?
But was it a big headline ? With all the talk lately about pursuing al-Qaida and dropping the ball/taking our eyes off the prize , it seemed strange that the capture of the biggest al-Qaida operative in Iraq would get so little coverage. Too busy telling us about the Dems. bolting from a Fox News debate I guess. Did I happen to mention the capture took place at Abu Ghraib ? I sure hope no one makes him wear panties on his head ,but a Saddam necktie seems to be in order. Just a week ago, the ISI posted videos of the executions of 18 Iraqi security troops.
The understated news of this is that it was an Iraqi Army operation . I have heard as yet no news of US involvment .
paraclete answered on 03/11/07:see they can do it when they want to, a good reason for american troops to leave | | Question/Answer | tomder55 asked on 03/02/07 - Gore buys carbon offsets from himself
yes it's true . He buys them from Generation Investment Management LLP of which he is a cofounder and chairman of the board .
Gore helped found Generation Investment Management, through which he and others pay for offsets. The firm invests the money in solar, wind and other projects that reduce energy consumption around the globe, she said.
I assume he also takes a salary from Generations . So he pays himself to burn all the carbon he wants and keep this phony pretext going that he lives a 'green'“carbon-neutral†life.
The intended goal of carbon offsets is to combat global warming. The appeal of becoming “carbon neutral†has contributed to the growth of voluntary offsets, which often are a more cost-effective alternative to reducing one’s own fossil-fuel consumption. However, the actual amount of carbon reduction (if any) from an offset project is difficult to measure, largely unregulated, and vulnerable to misrepresentation.
So the offsets are meant to be alternatives to changing your carbon hogging life-style BUT “the actual amount of carbon reduction (if any) from an offset project is difficult to measure, largely unregulated, and vulnerable to misrepresentation.â€
Yes ,I'd say Gore is misrepresenting something . By playing the the end of the world clarion he brings up the value of companies like Generation that invests other peoples monety for a fee into other green companies who's values also increase as he touts the end of the world . The NY Slimes actually has an intersting take on carbon offsets .
Still, as demand for greener living grows, the number of companies jumping into the game has multiplied. At least 60 companies sold offsets worth about $110 million to consumers in Europe and North America in 2006, up from only about a dozen selling offsets worth $6 million in 2004, according to Abyd Karmali of ICF International.Yet another perverse effect, say critics, is that some types of carbon-offset initiatives may actually slow the changes aimed at coping with global warming by prolonging consumers’ dependence on oil, coal and gas, and encouraging them to take more short-haul flights and drive bigger cars than they would otherwise have done.
Climate Care, for example, has linked up with Land Rover, a maker of sport utility vehicles, to help the company offset its own emissions. As part of a promotional program, Climate Care also helps purchasers of new Land Rovers offset their first 45,000 miles of driving.
In that way, the program may actually help sell “larger cars with higher emissions†and thus contribute more to global warming, according to Mary Taylor, a campaigner with the energy and climate team at Friends of the Earth.
Me ...I think instead of buying technolgy delaying offsets they should instead be investing their monies into auto engines that maximize the efficiencies of alternative fuels ,or developing the next generation of coal burning emission scrubbers . Since no matter what the wackos say ,no one is going to stop the emerging economies from buring coal.
paraclete answered on 03/03/07:you are somewhat cynical what Gore is doing is offsetting his carbon imprint, how successful this depends on how this trust actually i. It is far wiser to lower the imprint than rely on such means to offset. If everyone follows the Gore strategy there will not be enough renewable projects to go around and pollution will continue unabated.
The answer to the problem is not in offsets but in removing the polluting industries and fully replacing them with renewables, a long term objective. this can only happen when governments get serious and become willing for their tax intake to be reduced for a while. | | Question/Answer | | JacquelineA2006 asked on 03/01/07 - 2007.. part II
i was trying to post a follow-up question but it wasn't working on here for some reason. anyhow this is an example of one of the many responses i get from men on this topic..
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Whats wrong with a girl a having the car and offering to pick the guy the up?
It's a date and a 2 way thing...
If your both interested in each other meet half way... She drives the guy pays?
Next time it can be the other way around.
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Now, that is just stupid.
paraclete answered on 03/01/07:I get the idea you are a very frivilous person. You surely don't believe that true equality is possible between male and female. Look if it's so important to you we can date and you can do it all, spend your money if it makes you happy.
Men are conditioned by their mothers and society to behave in a particular manner towards women, it's strange that a woman should put these notions in the head of a man and yet women don't want men to behave that way?
give me my club | | Question/Answer | | JacquelineA2006 asked on 02/28/07 - 2007..
This is not exactly political but still a good question to put up in my opinion. I would like to say i am 25 before continuing. You know it use to be like this.. the guy would pick the girl up and take her out and then take her back home after the date. Nowadays i run across men and these are all types that want you to drive out and meet them at the club you were planning to go dancing at or drive into the city and meet up somewhere and go from there. If a lady has to drive out and meet them then that is not a date! Why are these men like this..? Why do they not want to treat the opposite sex like a lady? I like your responses to the other topics we talk about and wanted to get your views on this.
paraclete answered on 02/28/07:women wanted to be independent and so there you have the result | | Question/Answer | | rusty asked on 02/27/07 - Iraq
What are your opinions about the war in Iraq? Do you think that it should be wrapped up and the President should focus on our current problems over here?
paraclete answered on 02/27/07:There is no doubt there are bigger issues than Iraq. It just looks like a big issue because so much resourse is devoted to it.
Israel/Palistine isn't such a big issue at the moment but a year or two ago it was the big issue, so the lesson here is give it less attention and a solution might emerge
Don't know your local issues but one your President should be focusing on is climate change, he lost the opportunity and six years where he could have shown leadership. Another is border protection, it's hard to take you seriously over there when you don't protect yourselves at the most basic level | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 02/27/07 - FYI: the facts Sometimes you just have to report the facts. On the first gun control question Paraclete said to me, "Strange how so many people want out, what are you doing over there?"
Good question, but the rate is not much different in Australia. Total suicides in the US for 2004 were 32,439 - .011% of the population, roughly 11.05 per hundred thousand.
In Australia for 2004, total suicides were 2098 - .0104% of the population, or roughly 10.4 per hundred thousand. Official Australian stats here (pdf) and official US stats here.
The latest statistics compiled by WHO reveal it's much grimmer in the former Eastern Bloc and much of western Europe including Belgium, Finland, Switzerland, Austria and France with its 17.6 suicides per hundred thousand people. Japan was 10th with 23.8 per hundred thousand and Lithuania led this tragic statistic with 42.1 per hundred thousand.
Seems the level of distress is pretty equal in Australia and the US, where Americans are apparently 60% happier than the French.
Another thing Paraclete claimed was, "The British Home Office reports that in the nine months following the handgun ban, firearm-related offences in England and Wales dropped by 13%.
A British citizen is still 50 times less likely to be a victim of gun homicide than an American."
Since the UK introduced the supposed "toughest gun control laws in the world," gun crime has doubled according to the Telegraph.
Even more facts for you. In 1994, the year before Texans were given the right to carry concealed weapons, there were 129,838 incidents of violent crime among our population of 18,378,000.
In 2005 that number fell to 121,091 incidents of violent crime among our population of 22,859,968.
Our population grew by 4,481,968 while incidents of violent crime fell by 8,747 since we were allowed to carry concealed weapons. Murders FELL from 2,022 in 1994 to 1,407 in 2005.
It's difficult to compare statistics with Australia as they are categorized differently, but while the level of homicides in Australia has remained fairly level the number of assaults have risen from 114,156 in 1996 to 158,629 in 2003, an increase of almost 30%. Sexual assaults rose from 14,542 in 1996 to 18,237 in 2003, an increase of almost 23%.
Just thought you all should know. paraclete answered on 02/27/07:Thanks for that synopsis, but you have to look at underlying factors suicide in Australia is related to the way our country is changing, drought, loss of employment, Influx of migrants and refugees who bring their problems with them, on sett of poverty, and so on, what are the reasons in the US and other places? You cannot take absolute numbers and say the incidence is risen any more than you can take the rate per 100,000 and say the incidence is fallen. What we can say is in Australia the incidence of reporting violence has increased. What I do know is the incidence of these things in among " white Australians" is very low, the incidence among "indigenous Australians" is very high and the incidence among "recent migrant populations" is very high. | | Question/Answer | | JacquelineA2006 asked on 02/27/07 - gun control
I could point you to another country that has a very low crime rate and 100 percent gun ownership: Switzerland, where gun ownership is required by law and everybody has a military grade weapon in their house.
In Rwanda, the 1994 genocide was carried out largely by way of machete, not guns.
It's worth noting that in the USA, crime rates are trending down over the past 15 years, even while it becomes increasingly easier to not only obtain guns, but to get concealed carry permits, in most states over that same time period.
There's evidence to support both sides, which must force us to the conclusion that the fundamental character of the society is more important than the ease of obtaining guns. Not that that should come as any big surprise, though I'm sure to some people it will anyways. :-p
paraclete answered on 02/27/07:Switzerland is hardly an example, the swiss have a very different ethos and compulsory military service, those guns are in fact weapons allocated to members of the swiss armed forces. You might notice that the swiss don't have gangs roaming the streets and general lawlessness among the population. This is because of discipline, the opposite of what is permitted in the US
So if you want to be like Switzerland, first educate your people to a minimum level then induct them into the army. next surround yourself with potential enemies and declare your neutrality | | Question/Answer | | _JacquelineA asked on 02/24/07 - gun control
I recently came across some information that really seems to be more anti-american propaganda than actual fact.
I really find it amusing that people in other countries immediatly decide they can pass judgement on the United States concerning gun control while ignoring facts.
The Death Rate in the US is 167,184 for all forms of death.
Gun related deaths in 2004, latest numbers available: 29,569
Stabbings: 2,799
poisoning: 30,308
suffocation: 14,043
Total: 47,150
Now these are the INTENTIONAL deaths, or to put it acurately, people wanted to kill someone.
Unintended Firearm Deaths: 649
So, if you non-americans really want to criticise the US for allowing its citizens to purchase guns, at least use the right information.
One more thing, in the cities that have made it illegal to own handguns have seen a rise in gun related crimes.... so gee, you tell me, is gun control the way to stop violent crimes?
By the way, strangely enough, world wide, for every 10,000 people in a population, the rate of violence increases, until it hits around a half million people, then it goes up expotentially.
One last thing, at least in the United States, we are NOT under the constant video surveilence by dozens of cameras per block as in some cities!
paraclete answered on 02/25/07:and who compiled these statistics the NRA?
the only way you can objectively determine where gun ownership is an issue in crime is to compare teh situation between the US and a non gun owning society.
This therefore makes interesting reading.
Sharp Drop in Gun Crime Follows Tough Australian Firearm Laws
February, 2000
Sharp Drop in Gun Crime Follows Tough Australian Firearm Laws
Latest official data from Australia shows a marked reduction in gun-related crime and injury following recent restrictions on the private ownership of firearms.
Twelve days after 35 people were shot dead by a single gunman in Tasmania, Australia's state and federal governments agreed to enact wide-ranging new gun control laws to curb firearm-related death and injury. Between July 1996 and August 1998, the new restrictions were brought into force. Since that time, key indicators for gun-related death and crime have shown encouraging results.
Firearm-Related Homicide
"There was a decrease of almost 30% in the number of homicides by firearms from 1997 to 1998."
-- Australian Crime - Facts and Figures 1999. Australian Institute of Criminology. Canberra, Oct 1999
This report shows that as gun ownership has been progressively restricted since 1915, Australia's firearm homicide rate per 100,000 population has declined to almost half its 85-year average.
Homicide by Any Method
The overall rate of homicide in Australia has also dropped to its lowest point since 1989 (National Homicide Monitoring Program, 1997-98 data). It remains one-fourth the homicide rate in the USA.
The Institute of Criminology report Australian Crime - Facts and Figures 1999 includes 1998 homicide data showing "a 9% decrease from the rate in 1997." This is the period in which most of the country's new gun laws came into force.
Gun-Related Death by Any Cause
The Australian Bureau of Statistics counts all injury deaths, whether or not they are crime-related. The most recently available ABS figures show a total of 437 firearm-related deaths (homicide, suicide and unintentional) for 1997. This is the lowest number for 18 years.
The Australian rate of gun death per 100,000 population remains one-fifth that of the United States.
"We have observed a decline in firearm-related death rates (essentially in firearm-related suicides) in most jurisdictions in Australia. We have also seen a declining trend in the percentage of robberies involving the use of firearms in Australia."
-- Mouzos, J. Firearm-related Violence: The Impact of the Nationwide Agreement on Firearms. Trends & Issues in Crime & Criminal Justice No. 116. Australian Institute of Criminology. Canberra, May 1999; 6
Assault and Robbery
Those who claim that Australia suffered a "crime wave" as a result of new gun laws often cite as evidence unrelated figures for common assault or sexual assault (no weapon) and armed robbery (any weapon). In fact less than one in five Australian armed robberies involve a firearm.
"Although armed robberies increased by nearly 20%, the number of armed robberies involving a firearm decreased to a six-year low."
-- Recorded Crime, Australia, 1998. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Jun 1999
Firearm-Related Crime in Tasmania
"A declining firearm suicide rate, a declining firearm assault rate, a stable firearm robbery rate with a declining proportion of robberies committed with a firearm and a declining proportion of damage to property offences committed with a firearm suggest that firearm regulation has been successful in Tasmania."
-- Warner, Prof K. Firearm Deaths and Firearm Crime After Gun Licensing in Tasmania. Australian Institute of Criminology, 3rd National Outlook Symposium on Crime in Australia. Canberra, 22-23 Mar 1999.
Curbing Gun Proliferation in Australia
In the 1996-97 Australian gun buy-back, two-thirds of a million semi-automatic and pump-action rifles and shotguns were sold to the government at market value. Thousands more gun owners volunteered their firearms for free, and nearly 700,000 guns were destroyed.
By destroying one-seventh of its estimated stock of firearms (the equivalent figure in the USA would be 30 million), Australia has significantly altered the composition of its civilian arsenal.
In addition, all remaining guns must be individually registered to their licensed owners, private firearm sales are no longer permitted and each gun purchase through a licensed arms dealer is scrutinised by police to establish a "genuine reason" for ownership. Possession of guns for self-defence is specifically prohibited, and very few civilians are permitted to own a handgun. All the nation's governments, police forces and police unions support the current gun laws.
Other Countries
Similar reductions in gun death and injury have been noted in several countries whose gun controls have been recently tightened.
In Canada, where new gun laws were introduced in 1991 and 1995, the number of gun deaths has reached a 30-year low.
Two years ago in the United Kingdom, civilian handguns were banned, bought back from their owners and destroyed. In the year following the law change, Scotland recorded a 17% drop in all firearm-related offences. The British Home Office reports that in the nine months following the handgun ban, firearm-related offences in England and Wales dropped by 13%.
A British citizen is still 50 times less likely to be a victim of gun homicide than an American. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 02/22/07 - What is an attack? White House Stands Behind Cheney’s Attacks On Murtha And Pelosi
Yesterday, Vice President Cheney attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) for supporting Iraq redeployment:
CHENEY: I think, in fact, if we were to do what Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Murtha are suggesting, all we’ll do is validate the al Qaeda strategy. … I think that’s exactly the wrong course to go on. I think that’s the course of action that Speaker Pelosi and Jack Murtha support. I think it would be a huge mistake for the country.
Q Is that policy that we hear from the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi — from other Democrats, is that a policy of defeat?
CHENEY: Yes.
CBS reports Pelosi's response thusly:
Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday harshly criticized Democrats' attempts to thwart President Bush's troop buildup in Iraq, saying their approach would "validate the al Qaeda strategy." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi fired back that Cheney was questioning critics' patriotism.
"I hope the president will repudiate and distance himself from the vice president's remarks," Pelosi said.
Pelosi went further, "You cannot say as the president of the United States, 'I welcome disagreement in a time of war,' and then have the vice president of the United States go out of the country and mischaracterize a position of the speaker of the House and in a manner that says that person in that position of authority is acting against the national security of our country."
Try as I might I can't quite figure out the left. Either that or I know them better than they know themselves. In this case I'd have to say they're way too sensitive (which would explain all their sensitivity issues), yet they're so hypocritical and condescending at the same time. They've demanded the "Bush regime" come clean for years and yet they have a serious aversion to the truth.
Seeing as how Pelosi and Murtha have made their intentions 'vaguely clear' as we've already demonstrated on this board, Cheney was simply telling the truth. So, naturally that offends Madame Armani Speaker.
Contrast Cheney's 'attack' with Bill Maher on Leno Tuesday:
“Joe Scarborough did a whole week of panel discussions on whether he was an idiot. The people who were defending him were saying, 'well, he's just inarticulate.' But inarticulate doesn't explain foreign policy. I mean, it's not that complicated. The man is a rube. He is a dolt. He is a yokel on the world stage. He is a Gilligan who cannot find his ass with two hands. He is a vain half-wit who interrupts one incoherent sentence with another incoherent sentence.â€
Now THAT's an attack.
Steveparaclete answered on 02/22/07:I think Cheney is right, Pelosi is acting against the interests of the country, she is trying to dictate to the President | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 02/22/07 - IRAN:
I just heard that Iran is going to expand its nuclear interests. Today is the deadline for them to end the testing et al. They didn't. Look out now!
HANK
paraclete answered on 02/22/07:Iran is all bull and bluster Hank, a little like some others we know. They are years away from atomic weapons and only want to exploit nuclear energy for commercial reasons. You forget that they have nuclear neighbours. Pakistan, Russia which makes their nuclear program of more importance to them than it might otherwise be. It's not about america. | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 02/21/07 - Are Americans finally waking up? From today's NY Post.
AMERICA SAYS LET'S WIN WAR
By ANDY SOLTIS
February 21, 2007 -- In a dramatic finding, a new poll shows a solid majority of Americans still wants to win the war in Iraq - and keep U.S. troops there until the Baghdad government can take over.
Strong majorities also say victory is vital to the War on Terror and that Americans should support President Bush even if they have concerns about the way the war is being handled, according to the survey conducted by Public Opinion Strategies.
The poll found that 57 percent of Americans supported "finishing the job in Iraq" - keeping U.S. troops there until the Iraqis can provide security on their own. Forty-one percent disagreed.
By 53 percent to 43 percent they also believe victory in Iraq over the insurgents is still possible.
Despite last November's electoral victories by anti-war Democrats, the survey found little support among voters for a quick pullout of U.S. forces.
Only 25 percent of those surveyed agreed with the statement, "I don't really care what happens in Iraq after the U.S. leaves, I just want the troops brought home." Seventy-four percent disagreed.
The survey was conducted before last week's House of Representatives resolution repudiating Bush's war policies.
But by 53 percent to 46 percent, Americans said Democrats are going too far, too fast in demanding troop withdrawals.
But the poll of 800 registered voters found Americans pessimistic about Iraq's fledgling democracy.
Only 34 percent felt it would become a stable democracy, compared with 60 percent who said it would not.
Among other key findings of the poll conducted Feb. 5-7:
* When given a choice of four policies, an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops was the least popular (17 percent).
* The most popular option (32 percent) was a withdrawal timetable.
* The next most popular policy, favored by 27 percent, was expressed by the statement: "The Iraq war is the front line in the battle against terrorism and our troops should stay there and do whatever it takes to restore order until the Iraqis can govern and provide security to the country."
The fourth option, favored by 23 percent, was the statement: "While I don't agree that the U.S. should be in the war, our troops should stay there and do whatever it takes to restore order until the Iraqis can govern and restore security to their country."
With Post Wire Services
andy.soltis@nypost.com
-----------------------
Interesting, no? Americans are a lot smarter about our options in Iraq than the Dems give them credit for. 50% of Americans expect and WANT the troops to stay in Iraq for as long as it takes to get the job done and support strategies that include a long-term deployment in Iraq.. Fully 82% of Americans are against an immediate pullout option, and 50% are against ANY option that includes a pullout until the job is over. And 57% of Americans say that we should support Bush on Iraq even if we don't agree with every aspect of how the war is run. These are SOLID numbers that favor Bush's policies.
It would seem that Murtha, Pelosi, Kennedy and Kerry's strategy of demanding immediate withdrawal at all costs is a losing stance for the Dems. I expect Clinton to gravitate towards the idea of a "timetable" as time goes along. Obama is in a bad spot... the darling of the far left, he can't easily shift to the right without losing some of his constituency.
I expect an all-out scramble within the Dem hierarchy to reposition themselves in lieu of this poll.
Are any other news outlets reporting this poll?
What is your opinion of the poll?
Elliot paraclete answered on 02/22/07:Are Americans waking up, I doubt it. Afterall if they didn't wake up when GWB stole the election way back when, why would they wake up today | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 02/20/07 - I just found out my neighbors, son Matt Bowe, just got killed in Iraq.
He was a medic. I think he was in a police station or something.
HOW are they ever going to stop this nightmare?
They don't even want to admit that the terrorists have more sophisticated weapons to shoot down our planes now. If all our planes are being shot down how will we ever get enough troops over there to win a war?
I haven't even heard it on the news yet, they keep talking about Britney's shave and the fools on the hill. Why do people go hiking in the nasty weather?
paraclete answered on 02/20/07:Try to keep your perspective, those who have been killed are a small percentage of those who serve. Yes, the enemy has sophisticatd weapons, but if they were so good they would have over run the forces in Iraq by now. The enemy operates out of fear and is opportunistic, seeking to disrupt everything that is done.
If The US leaves Iraq, there will be a civil war, all the atrocities will be avenged and there will be peace. If the US stays it will just go on and on, becuase they have a target | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 02/18/07 - Iraqui Civilians:
Are ALL the Iraqui CIVILIANS armed? It seems to me that they should be killing some of the insurgents themselves.
HANK
paraclete answered on 02/18/07:like you would do it yourself? let's go hunting an insurgent today, great sport. Like your leader hank you don't get it, these people support what the insurgents are doing | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 02/16/07 - A whiz too far? Talking urinals: New Mexico offers different approach to fight drunken driving
RIO RANCHO, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico is hoping to keep drunks off the road by lecturing them at the last place they usually stop before getting behind the wheel: the urinal.
The state recently paid $21 each for about 500 talking urinal-deodorizer cakes and has put them in men’s rooms in bars and restaurants across the state.
When a man steps up, the motion-sensitive plastic device says, in a woman’s voice that is flirty, then stern: “Hey, big guy. Having a few drinks? Think you had one too many? Then it’s time to call a cab or call a sober friend for a ride home.â€
(Note: I am not making this up...)
The recorded message ends: “Remember, your future is in your hand.â€
The talking urinal represents just the latest effort to fight drunken driving in New Mexico, which has long had one of the highest rates of alcohol-related traffic deaths in the nation. (The new tactic is aimed only at men, since they account for 78 percent of all driving-under-the-influence-related convictions in New Mexico.)
“It startled me the first time I heard it, but it sure got my attention,†said Ben Miller, a patron at the Turtle Mountain Brewing Co. bar and restaurant. “It’s a fantastic idea.â€
Jim Swatek, who was drinking a beer nearby, said: “You think, ‘Maybe I should call the wife to come get me.“’
Turtle Mountain Brewing owner Niko Ortiz commended the New Mexico Transportation Department for “thinking way outside the box.â€
Department spokesman S.U. Mahesh said the bathroom is a perfect place to get the message across. In the restroom, “guys don’t chitchat with other guys,†he said. “It’s all business. We’ve got their total attention for 10 to 15 secondsâ€
Similar urinal cakes have been used for anti-drug campaigns in Colorado, Pennsylvania and Australia, and for anti-DWI efforts on New York’s Long Island, said Richard Deutsch of New York-based Healthquest Technologies Inc., which manufactures the devices.
But Deutsch said he believes New Mexico is the only state to buy the devices.
New Mexico had 143 alcohol-related deaths in 2005, for the nation’s eighth-highest rate per miles driven. The problem is blamed in part on the wide-open spaces that make it necessary to drive to get anywhere, and the poverty and isolation that can lead people to drink to relieve their boredom or misery.
Also, some have complained that the state has only recently begun to emerge from years of lax enforcement.
Gov. Bill Richardson led a successful push two years ago to require ignition locking devices for anyone convicted of DWI — a first in the nation — and each year the Legislature has agreed on tougher penalties for repeat offenders.
New Mexico also has started a toll-free “drunk buster†hot line, boosted DWI enforcement in problem areas and increased police checkpoints. The state also has a DWI czar.
In November, a wrong-way drunken driver slammed into a car near Santa Fe, killing five family members, authorities said. The governor has since directed state regulators to issue cease-and-desist orders against three airlines to stop serving alcohol on flights to and from New Mexico. The culprit in the fatal wreck had been seen drinking on a flight into Albuquerque hours before the accident.
At the Turtle Mountain, the urinal cakes have proved so intriguing that three have been swiped already.
“I’m mystified why someone would stick their hand into one of our urinals,†Ortiz said. “But I’m sure we’ll see them on eBay. Hopefully, the seller will advertise it as, ‘Stolen from Turtle Mountain.“’
A urinal cake telling us "your future is in your hand?" Bwaaahaaahaaa!!! Can we sink any lower? And why just men's rooms, does it have something to do with that women going to the restroom in groups thing (no offense), so they wouldn't listen anyway? If people are stupid enough to steal them out of the urinals doesn't New Mexico have a more disgusting problem?paraclete answered on 02/17/07:is nothing sacred | | Question/Answer | tomder55 asked on 02/17/07 - The end of the electoral college ?
Wednesday I posted about attempts to undermine the primary process. Today I post about the possibilty of the end of the electoral college. Yes it is a possibility and sooner than you think.
A movement is afoot to undermine the Electoral College. The key player in this effort is a group called National Popular Vote , a 501(c)(4) non-profit group that advocates having the popular vote dictate presidential selection.
Because the Constitution states that “Each state shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors,â€[Art.2 Sec.1] their effort is concentrated on getting as many states as possible to enact a bill that would, “guarantee that the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia will win the Presidency.â€
23 states currently have bills in their legislatures awarding the state’s electors to the winner of the national popular vote rather than the votes in their state.
To illustrate the absurdity of this let's suppose Kansas and Conn. enact the law and 90 % of Kansans votes Republican and 90% Conn.'s popular vote is a Democrat .As it stands now all Kansas goes Republican and all Conn. goes Democrat. With this law it could be that both go either Republican or Democrat depending on the national outcome. The way I see it ,one of these states gets disenfranchised.
As with the movement of the primary dates ,the aim of this is to minimize the influence of the smaller states in the electoral process. Why would a candidate care about the vote in Wyoming when they can concentrate their efforts into a few urban centers and come away with a majority ? The winner would be the candidate willing to pander to the big cities. Small state issues would be ignored. Rural America would be further marginalized. Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago would elect the president. The Electoral College was designed to prevent large states (then Virginia and New York) from having the only say in electing the president, to keep radical swings in public opinion from causing radical swings in government, and to keep the small states in on the action.
I view these as nothing less than the abolishment of federalism. Why not abolish the Senate while they are at it ? or make it's membership based on population of the state ?
How can this possibly be fair when each State has it's own election laws . Do they now propose to make national standards for all voting also ?
I do not understand this . In 2 centuries there have been 2 elections where the President did not get the majority of the popular vote.Oh wait...yeah I do get it.... One of them was President Bush in 2000.
paraclete answered on 02/17/07:it is appearentally a flawed electoral process which could deliver a government to a president who was not elected by the majority of people, but by the majority of states obviously eighteenth century thinking in a small nation has no place in the twentieth century in a large one | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 02/17/07 - IRAQ: I have no doubts that the United States will win the war in Iraq by November, 2008. Since the Democrats have been pessimists and quite irritabale, will a Republican victory in Iraq quench any thoughts of them having a majority in the House and Senate in 2008? I think the Democratic Party will become somewhat obsolete in the minds of most Americans and be termed losers
HANK.
paraclete answered on 02/17/07:I had doubts the US could win the war in Iraq the day they started it Hank, it's one thing to defeat an army, it's another to defeat a people in their own land and the US forces never actually fought an Iraqi army and defeated it in close battle so the people never actually knew they could be defeated. All you defeated was one man, Saddam Hussein.
Your political parties will continue to exist no matter what the outcome. because you put your leaders on a high pedestal, you suffer from the same blindness as the Iraqi people, it is your president who has failed not your political party, George Bush (2) will go into history as the president who failed | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 02/16/07 - LAW OF THE LAND Diss a 'gay'? Go to jail!
Activists warn Christians targeted under new 'hate crimes' proposal
Posted: February 15, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
Two Christians in Australia have been indicted for criticizing Islam, and another for criticizing Zionism. A filmmaker has been threatened with arrest for using the word "homosexual" rather than "gay." Now a German priest faces jail time for publicly criticizing abortionists, and in Holland, "fornicators" and "adulterers" are protected classes and cannot be criticized.
All courtesy of the concept of federal "hate crimes" legislation, which unless defeated soon could be mandatory in the United States, warns a rising chorus of critics.
"All that matters are the delicate feelings of members of federally protected groups," said Michael Marcavage, director of RepentAmerica.com "Truth is not allowed as evidence in hate crimes trials. … A homosexual can claim emotional damage from hearing Scripture that describes his lifestyle as an abomination. He can press charges against the pastor or broadcaster who merely reads the Bible in public. The 'hater' can be fined thousands of dollars and even imprisoned!"
All this, he noted, to attack incidents that according to the FBI's 2005 Uniform Crime Report make up on one-fifteenth of 1 percent of all crimes.
The language is in a new proposal pending in Congress, H.R. 254, or the David Ray Hate Crimes Prevention Act. That, according to Rev. Ted Pike, of the National Prayer Network, starts out with a federal police state enforcement of "anti-hate" laws but would, as it has in other parts of the world, "lead inexorably to the end of free speech." paraclete answered on 02/16/07:let's see now, Muslims are homophobic and Islam don't allow homsexuality of any kind so does this mean that when this legislation is enacted Islam is banned along with Christianity. So then you will have freedom of religion without being able to belong to the major religions of the world this is perhaps 5% of the population dictating what the majority can think and say. I say it's time to get out your gun and go hunting.
I want to say I am very offended by the attitude of these homo freaks, who after all are an abomination, The Bible says so. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 02/14/07 - Chicken Shiite :al-Sadr gettin'while the gettin' is good
The "coward"(see hudna ) Moqtada al-Sadr made a bee-line express to Iran in the weeks after President Bush announced the surge .
Sources believe al Sadr is worried about an increase of 20,000 U.S. troops in the Iraqi capital. One official told ABC News' Martha Raddatz, "He is scared he will get a JDAM [bomb or as I like to call it ;"the Zarqawi treatment"] dropped on his house."
Sources say some of the Mahdi army leadership went with al Sadr.
According to ABC Sadr is staying with family but The Fourth Rail blog claims to have sources that know Sadr is under the protection of the Iranian Qods Force.
How long will he stay there ? He may try to wait us out .He may come back and try to force us out of Iraq (lol) . He may try to reconcile with us ;another unlikely scenario since by all appearances Iran is calling the shots for him. What should be apparent to forces inside Iraq is that he has no wheres near the control of the situation there as he thinks .
I also think he has played his political hand badly . He has alternated between being an active member of the gvt. to trying to undermine it when he hasn't gotten his way. Despite all of that Maliki has survived and the gvt. is still functioning . If he chooses to go into extended exile I think whatever thin support he has will be further shredded .Who will the Shia's rely on ? ....The mahdi militia who's leader is clearly an Iranian stooge ,and who cuts and runs when things get hot ???..... or a permanent National Iraqi Army .
Meanwhile ;Nancy Pelosi will continue holding a debate this week to disapprove of a strategy that has already demonstrated success.
paraclete answered on 02/14/07:showing his true colours, but then he is a moslem | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 02/14/07 - The 2008 election season It came upon us faster than I can remember and it appears to be already in full swing. Much of the rush to announce and organize appears due to many States changing their primary dates in an attempt to have greater influence in the outcome.
The latest example came out of Kalifornia.Their Senate passed a measure that would enable Democrats and Republicans to choose nominees Feb. 5 instead of June 3. The bill is expected to be heard in the Assembly next week and to pass easily. The Governator has said he will sign it.
Simular legislation is pending in Illinois, Texas, Florida and New Jersey. NY politicians and other states are also considering it .Pennsylvania and Indiana have legislation that would move their primaries to the first week of March.
This will force candidates to get organized quicker and to get their funding ducks in a row earlier . It clearly gives front-runners the advantage for 3 obvious reasons .
1. Well funded front runners will be in a better position to take their campaigns to a national-wholesale level.It will be over after Feb. 5.and expensive media markets will be in the deciding mix. The candidates with the most money on hand are the prohibitive favorites. Besides the above mentioned states the following will also hold primaries on Super Tues. Feb. 5 :Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, West Virginia
2. Dark horses will not have a change to gain momentum before the bulk of the delegates are already selected .
3. With the primaries spread out the way they were there was more room for debate amongst the candidates with the possibility of a glaring slip up changing the dynamics of the campaign . With all the primaries grouped together like this it will be possible for a front-runner to skip debates without consequences (as Hillary is already threatening )
Do you think that there is any advantage to just going to a national primary day ? I don't but that is where I see this heading to.
paraclete answered on 02/14/07:I pity you that you should have to put up with two years of presidential politicing | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 02/13/07 - Where's the outrage? Something that's puzzled troubled me for some time is the inconsistency from the left on what constitutes an outrage.
For instance, tom noted how Diane Sawyer caved to Ahmadinejad by wearing a hijab and his refusal to shake her hand, thereby allowing the Mahdi Hatter to perpetuate the stereotype that women are inferior. Where's the outrage? Instead, ABC's headline is trumpeted on the Huffington Post, EXCLUSIVE: Iranian President Says He's Ready to Cooperate on Nukes...
Imagine if Bush had requested Sawyer wear a dress for an interview...
In much of the Islamic world women are second class citizens (see above), the "insurgents" in Iraq, the Janjaweed in Sudan, the Taliban and Islamic factions all over are fighting to establish Sharia law that would spread this oppression of women. Where is the outrage?
Almost daily for the past 3 years or so our paper prints a letter to the editor referring to Bush's "lies." In Sawyer's interview the Mahdi Hatter denied any involvement in Iraq, claimed he was against any conflict and bloodshed, and we are the only country whose activities are completely transparent. The man is lying through his teeth for the entire interview, where is the outrage?
Moonbat conspiracists have long warned of Bush's impending theocratic rule, yet radical Islam seeks to establish a worldwide Caliphate by force. Where is the outrage?
Radical Islam cites two other reasons for their jihad against the west, support for Israel and the immoral, materialistic western lifestyle. Radical Islam seeks to eliminate Israel and kill or subjugate every Jew. The very issues the left holds dear; abortion, gay marriage, feminism, tolerance, multiculturalism, legalized drugs, needle exchanges, 'comprehensive sex education for kindergarteners,' and on and on, are a primary reason given by virtually every Jihadist for their desire to kill us. Radical Islam would put an end to virtually every value the left holds dear if given the chance.
Where is the outrage? paraclete answered on 02/14/07:what is it we are supposed to be outraged about here, that a woman was forced to dress modestly, or that Islam is allowed to exist at all. At least the Muslims are straight up about it, dress modesly or get out. | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 02/14/07 - 'nother media cover up Utah shooter was Bosnian Muslim paraclete answered on 02/14/07:They just didn't want to alarm you | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 02/11/07 - Really great site Has tons of links on about any political issues you can imagine.
http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/freedom.htm
http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/websites.htm paraclete answered on 02/13/07:what a load of rally round the flag boys crap | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 02/13/07 - MORE STRAEGY:
A couple of weeks ago I proposed an old wild west strategy for our troops to use in Iraq. That's what they're doing now!
How about this if what they're doing now doesn't work: Drop leaflets on Baghdad and the surrounding area telling all of the civilians to vacate the city. Our troops would help them, of course. Give them two weeks. Then level the place. This would make it possible to free up our troops in Iraq so they can take on Iran after a hiatus of sorts. This would allow our planes, ships and the Israeli air force to join our cause.
Your comments, please!
HANK
paraclete answered on 02/13/07:ah yes the scorched earth policy. Only a dill would propose it and only a bigger dill would execute it. What are the Iraqi made homeless by this moved supposed to do. In proposing this solution you are no better than that communist idiot in Zimbabwe, Mugabe, who bulldosed the houses of the poor. You are supposed to be on the side of compassion Hank. You tell us on here Christianity Board what a great Christian you are and yet come here and propose genicide. Do you think you will not be held to account. Ask yourself why is this war happening in Iraq, because another dill who though he owned the world decided to fix Iraq. Hank he doesn't and nor do you | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 02/12/07 - Obama v. John Howard US presidential hopeful Barack Obama has blasted as "empty rhetoric" Australian Prime Minister John Howard's attack on Senator Obama's plan to bring US troops home from Iraq .
The 45-year-old senator waded into a major foreign policy row just one day after formally announcing his candidacy, telling Mr Howard he should dispatch 20,000 Australians to Iraq if he wanted to back up his comments.
"I think it's flattering that one of George Bush's allies on the other side of the world started attacking me the day after I announced," Mr Obama told reporters in the mid-western US state of Iowa.
"I would also note that we have close to 140,000 troops in Iraq, and my understanding is Mr Howard has deployed 1400, so if he is ... to fight the good fight in Iraq, I would suggest that he calls up another 20,000 Australians and sends them to Iraq.
"Otherwise it's just a bunch of empty rhetoric."
Mr Howard earlier attacked Senator Obama's plan to withdraw US combat troops from Iraq by March 31, 2008.
The conservative leader said on commercial television that Senator Obama's pledges on Iraq were good news only for insurgents operating in the war-ravaged country.
"I think he's wrong. I think that will just encourage those who want to completely destabilise and destroy Iraq, and create chaos and a victory for the terrorists to hang on and hope for an Obama victory," Mr Howard told the Nine Network.
"If I were running al-Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008 and be praying as many times as possible for a victory not only for Obama but also for the Democrats."
Time for some math (I will round it out to make it simple for the Senator ):
Aussies population is around 20 million
The US has a population around 300 million .
That is 15 x more people.
Now Australia has 1,400 troops currently in Iraq which would be the equivalent if the US has 21,000 troops there . Obama's call for an additional 20 ,000 Aussie troops would equate to America adding 300,000 troops. The correct matching per capita contribution for the surge would be about another 1,400 additional troops for Australia .
Maybe Obama ,being a person who thinks he's ready for prime time should at least do his homework . If he did he would find that Australia has been in the front-lines in the war against jihadistan ,with commitments in Afghanistan, Fiji, East Timor, Indonesia and the Philippines.
I would also point out that since WWII Australia has sent troops in every major conflict we have been involved in the only ally who has done so. But then again ,because they have been our most consistent ally makes them a prime target for the Dhimmicrats .
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer reacted to Obama's rant by saying :
"That would be half of our army. Australia is a much smaller country than the United States and so he might like to weigh that up..."
"It's entirely appropriate the Australian Government expresses its view in a free world. You won't get anywhere trying to close down debate." ...
"A precipitous withdrawal by the United States from Iraq would be a catastrophe."
The linked article above also has some bizzare comments by other Democrats who felt compelled to weigh in on the issue . You can read them and judge them for yourself . I think Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter summed it up best :
"I think the Aussies have earned a right to comment on the world stage about their partner in this endeavour because they've been fighting side-by-side with us in Iraq"
Indeed . I did not hear the clamor of Democrats running o the microphones to comment on Vladimir Putin's comments this weekend . Nor did they oppose John Kerry sending his sister down under to try to influence their elections .Besides , President Bush has not been shy in offering his opinion of Australian internal politics just as I'm sure their labor party has no hesitation in attacking President Bush .
Obama's statements may best represent the Democrats vision of a "diplomatic solution" to Iraq. Insult our allies and inspire our enemies is one way to end the war....end it badly ....but end it nonetheless .The bottom line is that Australia has been with us from the beginning. They are entitled to their opinion.
paraclete answered on 02/12/07:You need to put this in context, Obama is only beginning his run, Howard is nearing the end of his, this is an election year and polarising the electorate is a successful tactic for Howard. Now little John is always taking on the Robin Hood's of politics internal and external and winning, he has afterall seen off more political opponents than Obama has had hot breakfasts. From what I has observed, Obama has a big mouth and John Howard just told him so, so I hope he considers himself told. | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 02/10/07 - without too much trouble can someone find a website for the stryker brigade with a picture of a Romeo 4.
I want to know how they are compared to the Abrams
My Lee J broke his wrist right before graduation. Now they are changing him to Fort Riley, Kansas and to a Romeo 4 and now he is not going to be going overseas in March.
Thanks much
worried mom
paraclete answered on 02/10/07:sure you have heard of google there are many references to the stryker brigade provided so take your pick | | Question/Answer | | Closer_To_The_Heart asked on 02/09/07 - FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES...ENJOY Somebody from California apparently wrote the top part, but somebody from Texas came back and put them on their butt's at the bottom.
CALIFORNIA:
I can wear sandals all year long.
I go to the Beach - not "down to the shore."
Our chicks are WAYYYY hotter than yours. Well... Miami can hang.
I say "like" and "for sure" and "right on" and "dude" and "totally" and "peace out" and "chill" and "tight" and "bro" and I say them often.
I know what real cheese & avocados taste like.
Everyone smokes weed and its no big deal.
We'll roll up 40 deep when something goes down.
I live next door to Mexicans, but we call them American's!
All the porn you watch is made here, cause we're better and that's how it is.
I don't get snow days off because there's only snow in Mammoth, Tahoe, Shasta, and Big Bear.
I know 65 mph really means 100.
When someone cuts me off, they get the horn and the finger and high speed chase cuz we don't fuck around on the road.
The drinking age is 21 but everyone starts at 14 (legally 18 if you live close enough to the border).
My governor can kick your governors ass.
I can go out at midnight.
You judge people based on what area code they live in, and when asked where you're from, you give your area code.
I might get looked at funny by locals when I'm on vacation in their state, but when they find out I'm from California I turn into a Greek GOD.
We don't stop at stop signs... we do a " California roll" No cop no stop baby!
I can get fresh and REAL Mexican food 24 hours a day.
All the TV shows you "other" states watch get filmed here.
We're the Golden State. Not the Cheese State. Not the Garden State ...GOLDEN!!!
We have In-N-Out (Arizona and Vegas are lucky we share that with them).
I have the most representation in the House of Representatives, which means MY opinion means more than yours, which means I'm better than you [geez.... hahaha].
The best athletes come from here.
*******IF YOU'RE FROM CALIFORNIA, REPOST THIS*******
******IF YOU'RE NOT, GO SIT IN A CORNER AND CRY******
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
TEXAS :
Ahem... So.. Um.. yeah... I read this, and thought I would reply...
Hey... California, listen up... Texas is where its at!
I too can wear sandals all year long... plus I can put on boots to stomp your toes and I won't even stick out.
You may be able to go to the "beach" instead of the "shore"... but can you go to the drive thru "Beer Barn?" What now surfer boy?
Your chicks aren't way hotter than ours... they are almost equal... and that's only due to silicone, saline, Botox, lasers and hair dye... We have the real ones and they can beat yours up.
We're taught to say "Yes Sir" and "Yes Ma'am" and respect our elders because of it. We also say "Howdy" and "fixin" and "Y'all" which are pretty much recognized right away anywhere in the world :) We're famous.
You may know what real cheese and avocados taste like... but I know what 100% Grade A Angus Beef tastes like. Who wants avocados and cheese when you can have steak and potatoes?
Ha Ha ... who do you think grows the weed and sells it to you?
Why roll 40 deep when something goes down if 5 corn fed country boys can get the job done...
I live next door to Americans, but we call them Mexicans.
About your Porn.... 3 words... "Debbie Does Dallas "... You can brag about it now, but we started it.
Why would you brag about not getting snow days off?
We're smart enough to know 65mph means 65, but our speed limit is 70.
When someone cuts me off, they get run over by my big ass truck, then I give them the finger and tell them to go back to California.
The drinking age is 21, but if you aren't chasin' the beer by 1 yr. old... you're behind.
Yeah, Well my governor became the President of the United States … yours isn't even eligible.
You can go out at midnight? That's nice, I haven't even come home by then.
Ok... you said, "You judge people based on what area code they live in, and when asked where you're from, you give your area code" and as hard as I try I have no idea what you're talking about... I think you're watching too much TV.
Yeah, you'll definitely get looked at funny when you come to visit but we have another name for you pretty boys, and its not Greek, its French.
Of course you don't stop at stop signs... none of you can drive.
You can pick up Real Mexican food 24 hours a day huh... well I can swing by home depot and pick up 24 Real Mexicans anytime of day. Can you say catering?
All the TV shows get filmed there... but where does your favorite poker game from? Texas Hold'em anyone? Besides, we've got Walker Texas Ranger. Chuck Norris knows where it's at! LOL. (I had to add something 'bout that! LMAO)
You can keep your golden state... We're the Lone Star State ...the one and only!! Not to mention we are the ONLY flag that can fly at the same level as the United States flag. Everyone else is beneath it.
Do I have to remind you about the drive thru Beer Barn again? Does In-N-Out serve alcohol? (Oh and did I mention Dr. Pepper was created in Texas?)
You guys have the best athletes huh?... Nine words... Lance Armstrong and The University of Texas at Austin.
Though I could mention MICHAEL JOHNSON - Olympic Sprinter, World record holder in 200m and 400m, 5 Olympic Gold metals, 9 time World Champion (born Dallas, Tx ).
Oh and remind me again who won the Rose Bowl between USC and Texas ????? I believe it was the LONGHORNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Football is a religion, not a sport.
90% of football "movies" you guys are making are about Texas Football.
Texas is the only state that can still separate to become its own country. The only way California's gonna accomplish that is if another earthquake comes along and you guys sink into the ocean. Can you say Atlantis... HaHaHa.
Come on Texans Show Your Colors! Repost!
And as the Great Sam Houston once said " Texas could survive without the United States , but the United States could not survive without Texas !!"
paraclete answered on 02/09/07:Texas, isn't that a p.... little town in the great state of Queensland, which has everything both Texas and California have, but it's bigger than both of them put together and no snow, not ever. Where is this paradise? why south of the equator, of course | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 02/06/07 - Inconvenient Kyoto Truths Was life better when a sheet of ice a mile thick covered Chicago? Was it worse when Greenland was so warm that Vikings farmed there?
GEORGE F. WILL
Newsweek
Feb. 12, 2007 issue - Enough already. It is time to call some bluffs. John Kerry says that one reason America has become an "international pariah" is President Bush's decision to "walk away from global warming." Kerry's accusation is opaque, but it implies the usual complaint that Bush is insufficiently enthusiastic about the Kyoto Protocol's binding caps on emissions of greenhouse gases. Many senators and other experts in climate science say we must "do something" about global warming. Barack Obama says "the world" is watching to see "what action we take."
Fine. President Bush should give the world something amusing to watch. He should demand that the Senate vote on the protocol.
Climate Cassandras say the facts are clear and the case is closed. (Sen. Barbara Boxer: "We're not going to take a lot of time debating this anymore.") The consensus catechism about global warming has six tenets: 1. Global warming is happening. 2. It is our (humanity's, but especially America's) fault. 3. It will continue unless we mend our ways. 4. If it continues we are in grave danger. 5. We know how to slow or even reverse the warming. 6. The benefits from doing that will far exceed the costs.
Only the first tenet is clearly true, and only in the sense that the Earth warmed about 0.7 degrees Celsius in the 20th century. We do not know the extent to which human activity caused this. The activity is economic growth, the wealth-creation that makes possible improved well-being—better nutrition, medicine, education, etc. How much reduction of such social goods are we willing to accept by slowing economic activity in order to (try to) regulate the planet's climate?
We do not know how much we must change our economic activity to produce a particular reduction of warming. And we do not know whether warming is necessarily dangerous. Over the millennia, the planet has warmed and cooled for reasons that are unclear but clearly were unrelated to SUVs. Was life better when ice a mile thick covered Chicago? Was it worse when Greenland was so warm that Vikings farmed there? Are we sure the climate at this particular moment is exactly right, and that it must be preserved, no matter the cost?
It could cost tens of trillions (in expenditures and foregone economic growth, here and in less-favored parts of the planet) to try to fine-tune the planet's temperature. We cannot know if these trillions would purchase benefits commensurate with the benefits that would have come from social wealth that was not produced.
In 1997, when the Kyoto Protocol's essential provisions were known, a "sense of the Senate" resolution declared opposition to any agreement that would do what the protocol aims to do. The Senate warned against any agreement that would require significant reductions of greenhouse-gas emissions in the United States and other developed nations without mandating "specific scheduled commitments" on the part of the 129 "developing" countries, which include China, India, Brazil and South Korea—the second, fourth, 10th and 11th largest economies. Nothing Americans can do to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions will make a significant impact on the global climate while every 10 days China fires up a coal-fueled generating plant big enough to power San Diego. China will construct 2,200 new coal plants by 2030.
The Senate's resolution expressed opposition to any agreement that "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States," which the Senate correctly thought Kyoto would do. The Senate said any agreement should be accompanied by "a detailed explanation of any legislation or regulatory actions that may be required to implement" it, and an analysis of the agreement's "detailed financial costs and other impacts" on the U.S. economy.
The president is now on the side of the angels, having promised to "confront" the challenge of climate change. The confronting is one reason for his fascination with new fuels. (Another reason, he says, is U.S. imports of oil from unstable nations. Our largest foreign source of oil is turbulent Canada. Our second largest is Mexico, which is experiencing turbulence because of the soaring cost of tortillas. They are made from corn, which is ... well, read on.)
Ethanol produces just slightly more energy than it takes to manufacture it. But now that the government is rigging energy markets with mandates, tariffs and subsidies, ethanol production might consume half of next year's corn crop. The price of corn already has doubled in a year. Hence the tortilla turbulence south of the border. Forests will be felled (will fewer trees mean more global warming?) to clear land for growing corn, which requires fertilizer, the manufacture of which requires energy. Oh, my.
President Clinton and his earnest vice president knew better than to seek ratification of Kyoto by a Senate that had passed its resolution of disapproval 95-0. Fifty-six of those 95 senators are still serving. Two of them are John Kerry and Barbara Boxer. That is an inconvenient truth.
Comments?paraclete answered on 02/06/07:There is nothing like leading with your chin, is there?
undoubtedly life was better when a mile high sheet of ice covered Chicago, well simplier anyway.
I think you need to consider why a mile high sheet of ice covered Chicago and whether it might happen again. It's no skin off my nose, after all, I don't live there.
You will immediately say, it was an ice age, yes, but there appear to be some trigger points and one of those is the shut down of the mid atlantic current. This can be triggered by an excess of freezing water as a result of melting the Greenland ice cap, an event for which there is evidence to suggest it might be underway.
What has to be recognised is that all the world's weather systems are interlinked and a major change in atmospheric conditions in North America or Asia has global implications. America is a major source of carbon dioxide today, 25%, and China will be tomorrow. There will be no North American prosperity to protect if the ice comes again to North America this point appears entirely lost on the people of that benighted place.
So we must find a way to stop this from happening or at least prevent us from being the cause of it and if doing away with the SUV is part of the answer, then goodbye SUV | | Question/Answer | | Closer_To_The_Heart asked on 02/06/07 - What a difference in 50 years!
Scenario: Jack pulls into school parking lot with rifle in gun rack.
1956 - Vice Principal comes over, takes a look at Jack's rifle, goes to his car and gets his to show Jack.
2006 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.
++++++++++++++++++++++
Scenario: Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight after school.
1956 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up best friends. Nobody goes to jail, nobody arrested, nobody expelled.
2006 - Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Scenario: Jeffrey won't be still in class, disrupts other students.
1956 - Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by Principal. Sits still in class.
2006 - Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. School gets extra money from state because Jeffrey has a disability.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Scenario: Billy breaks a window in his father's car and his Dad gives him a whipping.
1956 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to College, and becomes a successful businessman.
2006 - Billy's Dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. Billy's sister is told by state psychologist that she remembers being abused herself and their Dad goes to prison. Billy's mom has affair with psychologist.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Scenario: Mark gets a headache and takes some headache medicine to school.
1956 - Mark shares headache medicine with Principal out on the smoking dock.
2006 - Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Scenario: Mary turns up pregnant.
1956 - 5 High School Boys leave town. Mary does her senior year at a special school for expectant mothers.
2006 - Middle School Counselor calls Planned Parenthood, who notifies the ACLU. Mary is driven to the next state over and gets an abortion without her parent's consent or knowledge. Mary given condoms and told to be more careful next time.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Scenario: Pedro fails high school English.
1956: Pedro goes to summer school, passes English, goes to college.
2006: Pedro's cause is taken up by state democratic party. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU files class action lawsuit against state school system and Pedro's English teacher. English banned from core curriculum. Pedro given diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he can't speak English.
+++++++++++++++++++++
Scenario: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from the 4th of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up a red ant bed.
1956 - Ants die.
2006 - BATF, Homeland Security, FBI called. Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, FBI investigates parents, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated, Johnny's Dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.
+++++++++++++++++++++
Scenario: Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary, hugs him to comfort him.
1956 - In a short time Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2006 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in State Prison.
paraclete answered on 02/06/07:and what have you proven, how rediculous life in your country has become?, how stupid the population has become by allowing themselves to be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Now ask yourself what else has changed in your nation in that time.
I won't even offer you a set of multiple choice questions | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 02/05/07 - Calling any and all Constitutional scholars!!! First, read this oath of enlistment for the U.S. military:
"I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."
Now, notice that defending the Constitution is placed before obey orders, etc. It seems to me that it is that way for a distinct purpose, but maybe not.
In any event, what is the obligation of our armed forces when the Constitution is under attack FROM WITHIN, when it's attacked by the CINC, or Congress, or the SC?
Does the soldier defend the Constitution, or does he obey the orders given by CINC (or whoever), even if those orders are AGAINST the Constitution?
Question 2: I saw no expiration date on that oath; nor did I see one on any separation paperwork when I left. While I know I'm not subject to recall (even if others are), it almost sounds like a "moral obligation" to do my part to ensure American safety. Of course, that's how I treat it ANYWAY, as do thousands of people who have sworn no such oath, but it did kinda get my brain to turning.
This is just a hypothetical "what if" kind of question. I'm not suggesting that we revolt against our government or anything. Just wondering at what point--if any--the soldier's duty to the Constitution outweighs his duty to superior officers, up to and including CINC.
D paraclete answered on 02/05/07:this is this age old question for a soldier, how does he resolve the ethical dilemma of failing to carry out an illegal order. That oath allows no wriggle room, one can only hope the regulations give some guidance.
What constitutes an attack on the constitution, is an attempt to change it an attack? is a bad ruling by a judge an attack? is unconstitutional behaviour an attack?. No it doesn't say he will defend the US against enemies but the constitution a pecularily worded oath | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 02/02/07 - "SHIP OF FOOLS"
"The ship of fools is an old allegory, which has long been used in Western culture in literature and paintings. With a sense of self-criticism, it describes the world and its human inhabitants as a vessel whose deranged passengers neither know nor care where they are going." - Wikipedia
Well, guys and gals, perhaps it's time for HANK to take a hard line re: what's going on in our culture and elsewhere. How about an analogy? Let's call our White House a SHIP and call the politicians who haunt it EARTHLINGS who neither know nor care where WE, the citizens, are going. They're out for themselves. So, maybe our balance of power should be shifted from Washington to ALL State capitols. The United States exemplifies a FEDERAL republic whose central government is suppose to be restricted in power. Sorry! It's not! If each State became a REPUBLIC, a common sense REPUBLIC, said States would be ruled by very inclusive electorates. Reasoning: It's much easier for me to keep my eyes on the head of a pin instead of on a requiem. Smaller the better!
Would it be feasible to have 50 common sense REPUBLICS than what we have now? (Disclaimer: This is nothing but a hypothetical question)
HANK
paraclete answered on 02/02/07:hank I regard the hole of the US as a SHIP OF FOOLS. the leadership are fools to think they can lie to the people about important issues and the people are fools for electing them in the first place
knowing your political allegience I can only say hello fool! | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 02/01/07 - John Edwards other America He delights to recount on the campaign trail of the 'two Americas' and that he is a champion of the "other America" .
Well .... here is a brief glance at the other America that John Edwards resides in :
![]()
102-acre spread is likely the largest home in Orange County, N.C., and tax officials say it's likely to be the most valuable. The 28,200 square-foot estate, expected to be valued at more than $6 million, includes:
The recreation building (15,600 square feet) contains a basketball court, a squash court, two stages, a bedroom, kitchen, bathrooms, swimming pool, a four-story tower, and a room designated “John’s Lounge.â€......
The heavily wooded site and winding driveway ensure that the home is not visible from the road. “No Trespassing†signs discourage passersby from venturing past the gate. Sure to keep the other America out .
paraclete answered on 02/01/07:I note he is environmentally conscious | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/31/07 - Name that country. For more than sixty years it has been the recipient of aid from the United Nations, Europe and the United States. In fact, "the highest per capita aid transfer in the history of foreign aid anywhere." Statesmen all over the world have paid homage to it. It's leadership has been praised and defended by former American Presidents and world leaders . Charities have been established to support it. Fund raising in its name takes place every day. It has been provided with security training and weaponry by the International Community. If any country deserves to be called the proud creation of enlightened diplomacy and peacemaking, this is is it. paraclete answered on 02/01/07:this is the mythical kingdom of Palistine, land of the suicide bomber and the roof top dancer. No place on Earth has so singually distinguished itself as a potential A-BOMB test site | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 01/31/07 - ban light bulbs what a bright idea!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/energy_california_lightbulbs_dc
while America is on a ban kick what are some things you think NEED banned and why?
Can we ban idiots?
how about dirty dishes?
or haunted cemetaries?
paraclete answered on 02/01/07:I can't wait for the revolution | | Question/Answer | tomder55 asked on 01/31/07 - Name that country part II
Yup it's "Palestine" . That wonderful creation of enlightened diplomacy and peacemaking that sucks more direct aid out of the world then any other nation .
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=238542004
And what returns we get for the investment !!!
Caroline Glick reports it this way :
In the State of Palestine 88 percent of the public feels insecure. Perhaps the other 12 percent are members of the multitude of regular and irregular militias. For in the State of Palestine the ratio of police/militiamen/men-under-arms to civilians is higher than in any other country on earth.
In the State of Palestine, two-year-olds are killed and no one cares. Children are woken up in the middle of the night and murdered in front of their parents. Worshipers in mosques are gunned down by terrorists who attend competing mosques. And no one cares. No international human rights groups publish reports calling for an end to the slaughter. No UN body condemns anyone or sends a fact-finding mission to investigate the murders.
In the State of Palestine, women are stripped naked and forced to march in the streets to humiliate their husbands. Ambulances are stopped on the way to hospitals and wounded are shot in cold blood. Terrorists enter operating rooms in hospitals and unplug patients from life-support machines.
In the State of Palestine, people are kidnapped from their homes in broad daylight and in front of the television cameras. This is the case because the kidnappers themselves are cameramen. Indeed, their commanders often run television stations. And because terror commanders run television stations in the State of Palestine, it should not be surprising that they bomb the competition's television stations.
So it was that last week, terrorists from this group or that group bombed Al Arabiya television station in Gaza. And so it is that Hamas attacks Fatah radio announcers and closes down their radio station claiming that they use their microphones to incite murder. Because indeed, they are inciting murder. What would one expect for terrorists to do when placed in charge of a radio station?
And so it is that in the State of Palestine, journalists - whether members of terror groups or not - are part of the 88 percent of their public who are afraid. Sunday they protested outside the offices of one terror faction or another that controls the Palestinian Authority.
Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, reporter Ala Masharawi explained, "No one goes outside, no one moves without thinking twice. Gaza's streets have become terrible streets, especially at night. Gaza is a ghost town."
As the Post's Khaled Abu Toameh reported last week, in the State of Palestine, Christians are persecuted, robbed and beaten in what can only be viewed as a systematic campaign to end the Christian presence in places like Bethlehem. As Samir Qumsiyeh, owner of the Beit Sahur-based private Al-Mahd (Nativity) TV station lamented, "I believe that 15 years from now there will be no Christians left in Bethlehem. Then you will need a torch to find a Christian here."
Wrechard at Belmont Club sums it up this way in a stinging rebuke:
The collateral damage inflicted upon the people of the Third World by the Left in pursuit of their fantasies will someday rank with the Slave Trade and the Holocaust in the annals of historical outrage. It is the last form of imperialism. And the worst.
Don't mince words Wrechard .....tell us how you really feel !!
paraclete answered on 02/01/07:I don't feel much, I think these events are sad, but there is nothing I can do. I know these events are the result of wrong mindedness, the sort of wrong mindedness which comes from reading over and over the mindnumbing writings of the Mad Mahdi from Mecca, Mudhutmad, who tolerated noone for very long.
What I know is that people like these are on a path to self destruction and we should not help them, just leave them to it. When there has been enough blood they will come to their senses, perhaps because all the idiots are killed. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/31/07 - A Biden Problem: Foot in Mouth By JAKE TAPPER
WASHINGTON, Jan. 31, 2007 — Senator Joe Biden, D-Del., the loquacious chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who launched his presidential campaign today, may be experiencing an ailment not entirely unknown to him: foot in mouth disease.
Biden is taking some heat for comments he made to the New York Observer, in which he said of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., a rival for the nomination: "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."
Immediately the conservative media establishment — Rush Limbaugh, the Drudge Report, bloggers — publicly pounced. At Townhall.com, Mary Katherine Ham wrote: "A clean black man? The first black guy on the American political scene who can both shower regularly and speak properly? Is that really what Biden thinks? If a Republican had said this, we'd have a national outpouring of grief over the residual ignorance and racial insensitivity in our country, and the guy would be in sensitivity training until around about the time John Kerry is elected president."
Obama Responds
And notably, Obama himself didn't do much to knock the story down.
Asked about the comments at a press conference this afternoon, Obama said, "you'd have to ask Senator Clinton, uh, Senator Biden what he was thinking," initially stumbling by mentioning the name of the Democratic front-runner for the nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. "I don't spend too much time worrying about what folks are talking about during a campaign season."
Asked if Biden meant to be complimentary, Obama said, "I'm not going to parse his words that carefully."
In a conference call with reporters about his presidential campaign, Biden acknowledged that he "was quoted accurately" in the New York Observer, but insists his comments are being misunderstood.
"Barack Obama is probably the most exciting candidate that either the Democratic or Republican party has produced at least since I've been around," Biden said. "He's fresh, he's new, he's insightful."
Biden said he regretted that "some have taken totally out of context my use of the word 'clean.'"
"My mother has an expression 'clean as a whistle, sharp as a tack,'" Biden said. "Look, the idea is, this guy is something brand new no one has seen before..."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's a good thing I was pulling into the parking lot when I heard this or I would have had to pull over laughing. I really want to give Biden a pass on this - ok, so I really don't - come on, "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy?"
What would Denzel say? Sidney Poitier? Bryant Gumbel? Lynn Swann? Colin Powell? Rod Paige? Alphonso Jackson? JC Watts? Michael Steele? Clarence Thomas? Alan Keyes, Emmitt Smith... paraclete answered on 01/31/07:and where did he learn his hygine, in the highlands of Kenya or an Indonesian madrassa | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 01/30/07 - The way things ARE.... ...NOT the way some WISH they were.
Been awhile since I've seen this level of absolute, raw truth. Agree or disagree, this is the reality of the matter.
There's the way things oughta be, and there's the way things ARE. And the two rarely, if ever, meet. Read on....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Read this. Then file under Takin Care of Business
In response to the news blurb about the Marine who put two rounds in a wounded insurgent's head in Fallujah, here's a response from a Marine:
It's a safety issue pure and simple. After assaulting through a target, we put a security round in everybody's head. Sorry al-Reuters, there's no paddy wagon rolling around Fallujah picking up "prisoners" and offering them a hot cup a joe, falafel, and a blanket. There's no time to dick around on the target. You clear the space, dump the chumps, and moveon.org.
Are Corpsman expected to treat wounded terrorists? Negative. Hey libs, worried about the defense budget? Well, it would be waste, fraud, and abuse for a Corpsman to expend one man-minute or a b attle dressing on a terrorist. Its much cheaper to just spend the $.02 on a 5.56mm FMJ.
By the way, in our view, terrorists who chop off civilian's heads are not prisoners, they are carcasses. Chopping off a civilian's head is another reason why these idiots are known as "unlawful combatants." It seems that most of the world's journalists have forgotten that fact.
Let me be very clear about this issue. I have looked around the web, and many people get this concept, but there are some stragglers.
Here is your situation Marine: You just took fire from unlawful combatants (no uniform - breaking every Geneva Convention rule there is) shooting from a religious building attempting to use the sanctuary status of their position as protection. But you're in Fallujah now, and the Marine Corps has decided that they're not playing that game this time. That was Najaf. So you set the mosque on fire and you hose down the terrorists with small arms, launch some AT-4s (Rockets), some 40MM grenades into the building and things quiet down. So you run over there, and find some tangos (bad guys) wounded and pretending to be dead. You are aware that suicide martyrdom is like really popular with these idiots, and they think taking some Marines with them would be really cool. So you can either risk your life and your fire team's lives by having them cover you while you bend down and search a guy that you think is pretending to be dead for some reason. Most of the time these are the guys with the grenade or vest made of explosives. Also, you don't know who or what is in the next room You're already speaking English to the rest of your fire team or squad which lets the terrorist know you are there and you are his enemy. You ar e speaking loud because your hearing is poor from shooting people for several days. So you know that there are many other rooms to enter, and that if anyone is still alive in those rooms, they know that Americans are in the mosque. Meanwhile (3 seconds later), you still have this terrorist (that was just shooting at you from a mosque) playing possum. What do you do? You double tap his head, and you go to the next room, that's what!!!
What about the Geneva Convention and all that Law of Land Warfare stuff? What about it. Without even addressing the issues at hand, your first thought should be, "I'd rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6."
Bear in mind that this tactic of double tapping a fallen terrorist is a perpetual mindset that is reinforced by experience on a minute by minute basis. Secondly, you are fighting an unlawful combatant in a Sanctuary, which is a double No-No on his part. Third, tactically you are in no position to take "prisoners" becau se there are more rooms to search and clear, and the behavior of said terrorist indicates that he is up to no good. No good in Fallujah is a very large place and the low end of no good and the high end of no good are fundamentally the same .. Marines end up getting hurt or die. So there is no compelling reason for you to do anything but double tap this idiot and get on with the mission.
If you are a veteran, then everything I have just written is self evident. If you are not a veteran, then at least try to put yourself in the situation. Remember, in Fallujah there is no yesterday, there is no tomorrow, there is only now. Right NOW. Have you ever lived in NOW for a week? It is really, really not easy. If you have never lived in NOW for longer than it takes to finish the big roller coaster at Si x Flags, then shut your hole about putting Marines in jail for "War Crimes". paraclete answered on 01/31/07:war is hell they say, don't shoot until you are shot at but after that anything that moves or might have moved is a target. This is an understandiable philosopy but uses the same logic the enemy uses, no mercy, so do these marines run up the death's head flag or like the SS wear it proudly on their uniform as a warning to Muslims | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/30/07 - United States stands resolute President George W. Bush is going to persevere and prevail in beating world terrorism and bringing stable democracies to both Afghanistan and Iraq.
There will be no wavering and no withdrawal.
These were the heartening words given me by U.S. Ambassador to Canada, David H. Wilkins.
So the mischief-makers, the defeatists, the fellow travellers and the Liberal-Left cabal better get out their handkerchiefs and start sobbing.
Their ignoble cause will fail.
The course of decency and democracy will win.
Now Wilkins, who visited the Sun for an editorial board meeting this past week, is a very astute and articulate fellow.
He spent 25 years in the South Carolina House of Representatives, 11 of them as Speaker of the House.
During those 25 years he was on the cutting edge of most major reform initiatives from welfare reform to property tax relief, and from educational accountability to truth-in-sentencing laws.
Wilkins is an affable, engaging man, but also one with a steel-trap mind.
In that, he's very much like his boss back in the White House.
As noted by Sun columnist Salim Mansur -- the best commentator by far in Canada on the Middle East and Islamic terrorism -- Michael Novak, the noted Roman Catholic theologian and philosopher, recently described Bush as "the bravest president" for staying firm in confronting the contemporary barbarians despite the venom of his peers.
The U.S ambassador echoed those sentiments, pointing out Bush will determinedly do what is right rather that what the polls may say is unpopular.
America's salvation matters more than what the temporarily up-and-down swings in the polls say.
The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon when Bush had been in the White House little more than one year changed the entire direction of the presidency.
Some 3,000 Americans died in those attacks -- more than in the attacks on Pearl Harbor, itself described by then-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as a "day of infamy."
Yet, despite repeated threats by Osama bin Laden and his associated adherents throughout the world, there have been no further Islamic terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.
I note that in the 1930s, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and his associated henchmen in other dictatorships believed the western democracies too weak to fight back.
He was wrong. We did.
We won.
After the end of the Second World War, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and the Communist henchmen who followed him had the same attitude as the 1930s bunch of dictators towards the western democracies.
But they, too, were wrong, and we won the Cold War.
Is the radical Islamic terrorist movement as mistaken in its view of the western democracies being weak as were Hitler, Stalin as their fellow compatriots, I asked Wilkins.
He replied it would be a mistake for the world terrorist movement to underestimate the resolve of the U.S. and its allies.
Instead of the Taliban running Afghanistan, we now have a democratic government there.
And instead of Saddam Hussein running Iraq, and using weapons of mass destruction against his own people, we have a democratic government there, too.
True, these as yet may be fragile governments, and not exactly the kind of democracies with which we are familiar, but they are on their way to succeeding.
Wilkins noted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, when asked about stability in the Middle East, declared the only way to achieve stability in the region is through democracy.
My friends, we are going to win this fight for civilization, and freedom for millions of men, women and children who never had it before, and George W. Bush will eventually be acclaimed as a great historic leader.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rush Limbaugh? Michael Medved? National Review? Freepers? Nope. Canadian columnist Paul Jackson in the Calgary Sun. It's a shame we can't get more Americans to recognize that Bush's resolve to do what's right in defeating the Islamic jihad is not 'arrogance.' It's a shame more Americans - our own media and congress included - can't applaud the president for pressing on in this noble and necessary cause in spite of the polls. It took a Canadian. paraclete answered on 01/31/07:resolute, sounds like a good name for the ship of state, but how does this differ from stay the course. One day you will have a new thought over there and then you can call that ship: revelation. | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 01/29/07 - one more post on waste contributing to pollution over the past half century many mechanics and so forth have invented cars that last forever (Tucker). Carboraters that will triple your gas mileage (the ones they have at Advanced Auto and so forth are inferior compared to the ones they don't want us to know about).
And back in the fifties and sixties (even since) several people have invented alternative fuels. My ex's grandfather invented a clean clear corn fuel in the fifties. But what happens to these inventions? NOBODY hears about them because the government pays them off to NOT market them. WHY? Because big business would suffer since people would not have to buy cars and gas as often.
This really applies to everything. If you notice the insulation in stoves and refridgeraters nowadays it is nothing compared to the old. I use to be able to buy brooms that lasted years, now the bristles start falling out within months or the handle swivels off and
taping or gluing it doesn't work.
paraclete answered on 01/30/07:YOU SEEM TO HAVE A THING ABOUT A GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACY TO PREVENT INNOVATION AND SUBJECT THE POPULATION. Let me say that I doubt it very much, but as to whether there might be a conspiracy by oil companies and other vested interests to prevent marketting of innovative technology that would radically change their market, yes, I don't doubt it, Hydrolosis, the conversion of water to fuel is one such technology. The Wankel engine is another. You are noting the result of cheap production in places like China, if it is a conspiracy, it is a communist conspiracy. After all Marx said we will sell the last capitalist the rope to hang himself. the communists are now in possession of the production of many essential items with the west foregoing their own production, wait and see what happens when Chinese cars hit your market. You might have thought Lada or Skoda was a joke, well no one will be laughting.
If your government, and mine, is responsible for anything, it is failure to see the big picture. | | Question/Answer | | Choux... asked on 01/28/07 - End War in Iraq by Jan 2009 AP Iowa -
"Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday that
President Bush should withdraw all U.S. troops from
Iraq before he leaves office, asserting it would be "the height of irresponsibility" to pass the war along to the next commander in chief.
"This was his decision to go to war with an ill-conceived plan and an incompetently executed strategy," the Democratic senator from New York said her in initial presidential campaign swing through Iowa.
"We expect him to extricate our country from this before he leaves office" in January 2009, the former first lady said."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
It was Bush's blundering that caused this mess in the MiddleEast...time for him to wind up the war paraclete answered on 01/29/07:if they keep killing 250 gunmen a day the war will be over soon | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 01/29/07 - American vehicles SUV vs the death traps Why do you think we Americans drive SUV's as opposed to the alternative little bread box size cars we have as an alternative?
From the way I see, our government did away with the medium size cars of the sixties because they said they were polluting our environment. I could never understand why they didn't just modify the cars to the standards they wanted instead of coming out with the little cars with no style. The main standards people tell me are emissions, lighter material than the steel and better gas mileage.
Anyway, they put us in these little cars where you can barely fit two adults and three kids. Then they say the kids up to seven years old or sixty pounds have to have car seats making even less room in the car. So solution, the SUV now a family of 5 or more can comfortable go out together without having to take two vehicles. Soccer moms can take more than three kids to soccer without a problem.
paraclete answered on 01/29/07:How little you know, the SUV are in fact death traps, having been proven to be unstable in a number of situations. put you in little cars? hardly, where I come from the size of the family car has grown since the introduction of the world car, a long time ago now. they are not the size of yank tanks but carry five people comfortably with good mileage. What do you consider style, something you can tower over others in? why don't soccer mums let others carry their own kids? and give the planet a break | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/28/07 - National Geographic Find An archeological team, digging in Washington DC, has uncovered 10,000-year-old bones and fossil remains of what is believed to be the first Politician .
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Although the team is not 100% certain, based on the the few clues that have been uncovered thus far combined with the physical positioning of the skeletal remains, all indications point to the fact that this assumption is valid.
paraclete answered on 01/29/07:yes very apt | | Question/Answer | tomder55 asked on 01/28/07 - Were Iranians responsible for the recent Karbala attack ?
On January 20th, a team of twelve men disguised as U.S. soldiers entered the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala, where U.S. soldiers conducted a meeting with local officials, and attacked and killed five soldiers, and wounded another three. The initial reports indicated the five were killed in the Karbala JCC, however the U.S. military has reported that four of those killed were actually removed from the center, handcuffed, and murdered.
Based on the sophisticated nature of the raid it appears to have been directed and executed by the Qods Force branch of the Iranian Republican Guard Corps.It was too complex for the likes of the Mahdi Army ,and al Qaeda does not operate so far South in Shia strongholds.
This raid required in depth intelligence, training for the agents to pass as American troops, American weapons, vehicles, uniforms, identification,and radios . Hezbollah as you'll recall executed a similar attack against Israeli forces on the Lebanese border, which started the Hezbollah-Israeli war last summer.
"The precision of the attack, the equipment used and the possible use of explosives to destroy the military vehicles in the compound suggests that the attack was well rehearsed prior to execution," said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, spokesman for Multi-National Division-Baghdad.
"The attackers went straight to where Americans were located in the provincial government facility, bypassing the Iraqi police in the compound," he said. "We are looking at all the evidence to determine who or what was responsible for the breakdown in security at the compound and the perpetration of the assault."
Was this raid conducted in response to the US raids on Iranian missions in Baghdad and Irbil .. where Iranian Qods Force agents were captured, along with documentation that divulged Iran's involvement with and support of Shia death squads, as well as the Sunni insurgent, and al-Qaeda in Iraq ? Five Iranians from the Irbil raid are still in U.S. custody, and captured U.S. soldiers would provide for excellent bargaining chips.
If this is true it certainly explains the new US policy regarding captured Iranian agents. Finally ;The gloves are coming off but is there a constituency for any kind of meaningful response in the US ?
and as a side note : John Kerry in Davos with his typically impeccable sense of timing decided that now would be a good time to question why the US is not buddying up to Iran. Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit wrote : "Like Jimmy Carter, he'll never forgive America for rejecting him, and he'll console himself with the approval of America's enemies."
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Former President of Iran Mohammad Khatami,
left, and Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.),
take the stage for a discussion on
"The Future of the Middle East"
at the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland, Saturday, Jan. 27, 2007.
(AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)
![]()
Kerry criticized what he called the
"unfortunate habit" of Americans
to see the world "exclusively
through an American lens."
paraclete answered on 01/29/07:it seems some people have the ability to talk to the muslim world and some do not | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 01/29/07 - ironic, hypocrites or what? Hollywood Among World's Biggest Polluters
Ironically, the climate-change disaster warning film The Day After Tomorrow was a big contributor to actual climate-change disaster.
Special effects explosions, idling vehicles, teams of workers building monumental sets -- all of it contributes to Hollywood's newly discovered role as an air polluter, a university study has found.
The film and television industry and associated activities make a larger contribution to air pollution in the five-county Los Angeles region than almost all five other sectors researched, according to a two-year study released Tuesday by the University of California, Los Angeles.
Although Hollywood seems environmentally conscious thanks to celebrities who lend their names to various causes, the industry created more pollution than individually produced by aerospace manufacturing, apparel, hotels and semiconductor manufacturing, the study found.
Only petroleum manufacturing belched more emissions.
Movie production tops hotels, aerospace, and apparel and semiconductor manufacturing in traditional air pollutant emissions in Southern California, according to the UCLA study, initially prepared for the Integrated Waste Management Board. The industry is probably second only to petroleum refineries, for which comparable data were not available.
In greenhouse gas emissions, the entertainment industry ranks third, The Times reported. paraclete answered on 01/29/07:it's wonderful that a new scapegoat can be found, but we are all guilty, we consume the products that polluting industries produce. No doubt that industry could be more environmentally conscious but then why should they when government will not act on polluting automobiles, trucks belching carbon laden smoke, utilities pouring pollution into the atmosphere. The only thing that will change anything is a change in culture. no more fast food, no more consumerism, no more multinationals moving pollution to other communities. | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 01/29/07 - Is saying don't touch the hot stove enough at 2? Sparing the rod may spoil the child, but in California it may keep you from being charged with a misdemeanor. The California State Assembly has provided another horrendous example of legislators abusing the use of criminal penalties to implement policy goals - this time in the arena of parenting. A proposal being considered today would make spanking a child under three years old a misdemeanor. If child abuse is the concern, current laws protecting children from physical abuse should be the remedy. If those laws are insufficient, perhaps legislators should consider revising them in order to prevent real abuse. As it relates to spanking, to prevent a parent from being able to discipline their child in the way that they choose implicates fundamental constitutional rights. The addition of criminal penalties to parenting decisions is clearly beyond the appropriate use of the law.
The bill, which is still being drafted, will be written broadly, she added, prohibiting`any striking of a child, any corporal punishment, smacking, hitting, punching, any of that.'' Lieber said it would be a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail or a fine up to $1,000, although a legal expert advising her on the proposal said first-time offenders would probably only have to attend parenting classes.
paraclete answered on 01/29/07:this idiocy has been loose in the world for a while now. There are circumstances where a child has to be punished to stop undesirable behaviour. This not that the child should be beaten but a sharp smack to indicate the behaviour will not be tolerated. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/28/07 - Common denominator? I received a free subscription to Newsweek (I would never pay for one) and an article by Fareed Zakaria, The Limits of Democracy caught my eye. In the article he speaks of "freedom's retreat" while stating about Bush "no president has attached his name more completely to the promotion of democracy."
Zakaria speaks of what Freedom House director of research Arch Puddington calls "pushback" against democracy. He quotes Larry Diamond of the Journal of Democracy as saying "Bush's arrogance has turned people off the idea of democracy" (as if we didn't already know everything is Bush's fault). Though the real issue according to Zakaria is "the basic problem confronting the developing world today is not an absence of democracy but an absence of governance."
I can't say that I'd disagree with that assessment, but is there another common denominator in many if not most world conflicts?
For example, the conflicts in Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan, Somalia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Nigeria, Phillipines, India (Assam and Kashmir). What is this common denominator, and it ain't Bush. paraclete answered on 01/28/07:well I'm going to say what you have avoided, It's Islam, the religion of "peace" which spreads it's by bloody conflict and respects noone who is not islamic | | Question/Answer | Dark_Crow asked on 01/27/07 - Is it true that a penny saved is a penny earned?
My personal opinion is that it is not true literally, or figuratively. In fact I think the idiom is foolish in the context of economics, and goes to the heart of the difference between right thinking and wrong thinking because it excludes the concept of creating wealth and new sources of growth; that is, the difference between Nation Building i.e. development to foster social harmony and economic growth- and stagnation- the result of cutting and running in Iraq.
Comments?
paraclete answered on 01/27/07:economists know that saving is an important factor in economic growth, so yes. | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 01/25/07 - why do people dread jury duty? Replies for IF people dread jury duty and really don't want to do it.
A. I stick to my own race, I wouldn't know
B. I am all for profiling
C. I am for the little guy, companies have their racket.
D. Let the criminal rot in jail; at least send them all to their own island.
E. No I am not KKK, but I can't relate to anything outside my own problems
paraclete answered on 01/25/07:from my own point of view, the system is disruptive and time wasting
1. You are notified weeks in advance and therefore have to make many arrangements in case you are selected and you have no idea of the duration of the matter you will be empanelled for.
2. The likelyhood you will be selected is low, meaning at the very least you will waste a morning
3. even if you are selected the likelihood you will be challenged is high
4. It's time a better system was divised
| | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/22/07 - Has Global Warming/Climate Change been oversold ? Jan. 22, 2007, 9:45AM
Climate scientists feeling the heat
As public debate deals in absolutes, some experts fear predictions 'have created a monster'
By ERIC BERGER
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Yet, it took the dramatic images of a hurricane overtaking New Orleans and searing heat last summer to finally trigger widespread public concern on the issue of global warming.
Climate scientists might be expected to bask in the spotlight after their decades of toil. The general public now cares about greenhouse gases, and with a new Democratic-led Congress, federal action on climate change may be at hand.
Problem is, global warming may not have caused Hurricane Katrina, and last summer's heat waves were equaled and, in many cases, surpassed by heat in the 1930s.
In their efforts to capture the public's attention, then, have climate scientists oversold global warming? It's probably not a majority view, but a few climate scientists are beginning to question whether some dire predictions push the science too far.
"Some of us are wondering if we have created a monster," says Kevin Vranes, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado.
Vranes, who is not considered a global warming skeptic by his peers, came to this conclusion after attending an American Geophysical Union meeting last month. Vranes says he detected "tension" among scientists, notably because projections of the future climate carry uncertainties — a point that hasn't been fully communicated to the public.
The science of climate change often is expressed publicly in unambiguous terms.
For example, last summer, Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, told the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce: "I think we understand the mechanisms of CO2 and climate better than we do of what causes lung cancer. ... In fact, it is fair to say that global warming may be the most carefully and fully studied scientific topic in human history."
Vranes says, "When I hear things like that, I go crazy."
Nearly all climate scientists believe the Earth is warming and that human activity, by increasing the level of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, has contributed significantly to the warming.
But within the broad consensus are myriad questions about the details. How much of the recent warming has been caused by humans? Is the upswing in Atlantic hurricane activity due to global warming or natural variability? Are Antarctica's ice sheets at risk for melting in the near future?
To the public and policymakers, these details matter. It's one thing to worry about summer temperatures becoming a few degrees warmer.
It's quite another if ice melting from Greenland and Antarctica raises the sea level by 3 feet in the next century, enough to cover much of Galveston Island at high tide.
Models aren't infallible
Scientists have substantial evidence to support the view that humans are warming the planet — as carbon dioxide levels rise, glaciers melt and global temperatures rise. Yet, for predicting the future climate, scientists must rely upon sophisticated — but not perfect — computer models.
"The public generally underappreciates that climate models are not meant for reducing our uncertainty about future climate, which they really cannot, but rather they are for increasing our confidence that we understand the climate system in general," says Michael Bauer, a climate modeler at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in New York.
Gerald North, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, dismisses the notion of widespread tension among climate scientists on the course of the public debate. But he acknowledges that considerable uncertainty exists with key events such as the melting of Antarctica, which contains enough ice to raise sea levels by 200 feet.
"We honestly don't know that much about the big ice sheets," North says. "We don't have great equations that cover glacial movements. But let's say there's just a 10 percent chance of significant melting in the next century. That would be catastrophic, and it's worth protecting ourselves from that risk."
Much of the public debate, however, has dealt in absolutes. The poster for Al Gore's global warming movie, An Inconvenient Truth, depicts a hurricane blowing out of a smokestack. Katrina's devastation is a major theme in the film.
Judith Curry, an atmospheric scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has published several research papers arguing that a link between a warmer climate and hurricane activity exists, but she admits uncertainty remains.
Like North, Curry says she doubts there is undue tension among climate scientists but says Vranes could be sensing a scientific community reaction to some of the more alarmist claims in the public debate.
For years, Curry says, the public debate on climate change has been dominated by skeptics, such as Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and strong advocates such as NASA's James Hansen, who calls global warming a ticking "time bomb" and talks about the potential inundation of all global coastlines within a few centuries.
That may be changing, Curry says. As the public has become more aware of global warming, more scientists have been brought into the debate. These scientists are closer to Hansen's side, she says, but reflect a more moderate view.
"I think the rank-and-file are becoming more outspoken, and you're hearing a broader spectrum of ideas," Curry says.
Young and old tension
Other climate scientists, however, say there may be some tension as described by Vranes. One of them, Jeffrey Shaman, an assistant professor of atmospheric sciences at Oregon State University, says that unease exists primarily between younger researchers and older, more established scientists.
Shaman says some junior scientists may feel uncomfortable when they see older scientists making claims about the future climate, but he's not sure how widespread that sentiment may be. This kind of tension always has existed in academia, he adds, a system in which senior scientists hold some sway over the grants and research interests of graduate students and junior faculty members.
The question, he says, is whether it's any worse in climate science.
And if it is worse? Would junior scientists feel compelled to mute their findings, out of concern for their careers, if the research contradicts the climate change consensus?
"I can understand how a scientist without tenure can feel the community pressures," says environmental scientist Roger Pielke Jr., a colleague of Vranes' at the University of Colorado.
Pielke says he has felt pressure from his peers: A prominent scientist angrily accused him of being a skeptic, and a scientific journal editor asked him to "dampen" the message of a peer-reviewed paper to derail skeptics and business interests.
"The case for action on climate science, both for energy policy and adaptation, is overwhelming," Pielke says. "But if we oversell the science, our credibility is at stake."
paraclete answered on 01/24/07:Given the events of recent hours, it may be that overkill was necessary for Bush to move on the car makers, and of course, the car drivers. He softened them up last year, and signalled a change this year, next year it might become mandatory. The technology for 90% ethanol exists now, why wait.
What on earth do you want with an SUV or pickup anyway, it's only because others have them, Bush could wipe the whole lot out by mandating a benchmark fuel consumption of say 25mpg, my Camry does 10ltr/100km which isn't good but it would qualify | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 01/24/07 - figured I'd put this here rather than get flack posting it you know where---ENJOY
The following are all replies that Detroit women have written on Child Support Agency forms in the section for listing "father's details;" or putting it another way...Who's yo Daddy? These are genuine excerpts from the forms. Be sure to check out #11. It takes 1st prize and #3 is runner up. Five surely gets "most creative."
1. Regarding the identity of the father of my twins, child A was fathered by Jim Munson. I am unsure as to the identity of the father of child B, but I believe that he was conceived on the same night.
2. I am unsure, as to the identity of the father of my child as I was being sick out of a window when taken unexpectedly from behind. I can provide you with a list of names of men that I think were at the party if this helps.
3. I do not know the name of the father of my little girl. She was conceived at a party at 3600 East Grand Boulevard where I had unprotected sex with a man I met that night. I do remember that the sex was so good that I fainted. If you do manage to track down the father, can you send me his phone number? Thanks.
4. I don't know the identity of the father of my daughter. He drives a BMW that now has a hole made by my stiletto in one of the door panels. Perhaps you can contact BMW service stations in this area and see if he's had it replaced.
5. I have never had sex with a man. I am still a Virginian. I am awaiting a letter from the Pope confirming that my son's conception was ejaculate and that he is the Saver risen again.
6. I cannot tell you the name of child A's dad as he informs me that to do so would blow his cover and that would have cataclysmic implications for the economy. I am torn between doing right by you and right by the country. Please advise.
7. I do not know who the father of my child was as all look the same to me.
8. Peter Smith Is the father of child A. If you do catch up with him, can you ask him what he did with my AC/DC CDs? Child B who was also borned at the same time...well, I don't have clue.
9. From the dates it seems that my daughter was conceived at Disney World; maybe it really is the Magic Kingdom .
10. So much about that night is a blur. The only thing that I remember for sure is Delia Smith did a program about eggs earlier in the evening. If I had stayed in and watched more TV rather than going to the party at 8956 Miller Ave , mine might have remained unfertilized.
11. I am unsure as to the identity of the father of my baby, after all, like when you eat a can of beans you can't be sure which one made you fart.
Yep, you guessed it right - you are all paying taxes to support these people!!!
paraclete answered on 01/24/07:makes me glad I'm not paying taxes to support those people, of course, we have our own crop of nare=do=wells, but I've reached the stage where I'm going to ask for a refund | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/23/07 - Hezbollah supporters paralyze Lebanon By Megan K. Stack, Times Staff Writer
9:15 AM PST, January 23, 2007
BEIRUT -- Hezbollah and its allies paralyzed Lebanon today, sending out thousands of demonstrators who seized control of major roads, brawled with government supporters and smothered the capital in the acrid smoke of burning tires.
Scores of people were wounded in clashes that erupted among feuding Christian groups and between Sunni and Shiite Muslims around the country.
The Hezbollah-led opposition had called for a general strike, and the roadblocks gave people little choice but to stay home. The only road to Beirut's airport, symbolically important as the sole vein between this restive nation and the outside world, was impassable — clogged with heaps of sand, garbage and roaring fires. Many flights were canceled, and passengers were stranded at the airport.
By nightfall, the capital was still locked down by opposition checkpoints. Hezbollah leaders have said that today would mark the beginning of a steady escalation; it was unclear whether they planned to lift the roadblocks overnight or whether the paralysis would continue.
The tense seizure of the country's roads took many Lebanese by surprise, and marked an escalation in Hezbollah's campaign to overthrow the U.S.-backed government...
"They are on our side," crowed Kamal Yehiya, a 20-year-old Hezbollah supporter.
****************************************************
It's good to see that terrorists that like to use their own as human shields still have people convinced they are on their side. Shall we send Bill Richardson to negotiate with Syria and Iran, or how about the Iraq Surrender Group? paraclete answered on 01/24/07:it's what you call an overdue coup
Having destabilised the country, Hezbollah will step in as the saviours and restore order. What Syria will say about a Shiite group taking over their former dependency will be interesting.
This might enthuse a few lebanese to go home and fight for the homeland which of course would mean less trouble makers here | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/22/07 - I think I just found the dumbest person in the world. Some idiot brought the domain name "ImpeachBush.com" or $25,200 on EBay . Think they will get a return on their investment in the 2 years remaining of the Bush Presidency ? paraclete answered on 01/23/07:yes very dumb, he would have done better to give the money to the elect Hilliary Campaign | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 01/22/07 - What went wrong? Back in the sixties I was all for the within the next century there will be a woman President. Women will straighten out the mess men made through the century.
Yeah, go for it the world will be in a much better shape...A Leave it to Beaver mom as President!
Now the thoughts of a woman President is scary-oooh!
With woman like Hill-ar-i-ous, Nancy P, Nancy F, Barbra Boxer and Cindy Shehan it scares me to even be of the female race.
Excuse me while I go have a nervous breakdown at the mere thought!
It's soooo scary--oooh that.....I forgot the ? paraclete answered on 01/22/07:it's called unisex, women wanted to be like men, but they are not | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/22/07 - President Bush deserves the Nobel Peace Prize ot at least some recognition for accomplishing what the UN and others have attempted by bribes and soft champagne diplomacy . First it was Libya ,and now it is North Korea who has decided that ...in the words of General Omar Bradley ;“If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.â€
According to the report :North Korea has reportedly agreed to halt nuclear activities including operations at a reactor in Yongbyon, and allow on-site monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency as the first steps to abandoning its nuclear program. The agreement came during a meeting of the chief nuclear negotiators of the U.S. and North Korea that ended Friday in Berlin, sources said.
All this of course remains to be seen and we would need to be constantly vigilant lest he think he is dealing with a President who would grant incentives without insisting that the NORKs keep their end of the bargain . Still ,President Bush insisted on the format for negotiations and despite all the critics harping ;it looks like something significant has been achieved .
paraclete answered on 01/22/07:Bush will only deserve the peace prize when he stops using threat of war as a tool. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/22/07 - Has Global Warming/Climate Change been oversold ? Jan. 22, 2007, 9:45AM
Climate scientists feeling the heat
As public debate deals in absolutes, some experts fear predictions 'have created a monster'
By ERIC BERGER
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Yet, it took the dramatic images of a hurricane overtaking New Orleans and searing heat last summer to finally trigger widespread public concern on the issue of global warming.
Climate scientists might be expected to bask in the spotlight after their decades of toil. The general public now cares about greenhouse gases, and with a new Democratic-led Congress, federal action on climate change may be at hand.
Problem is, global warming may not have caused Hurricane Katrina, and last summer's heat waves were equaled and, in many cases, surpassed by heat in the 1930s.
In their efforts to capture the public's attention, then, have climate scientists oversold global warming? It's probably not a majority view, but a few climate scientists are beginning to question whether some dire predictions push the science too far.
"Some of us are wondering if we have created a monster," says Kevin Vranes, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado.
Vranes, who is not considered a global warming skeptic by his peers, came to this conclusion after attending an American Geophysical Union meeting last month. Vranes says he detected "tension" among scientists, notably because projections of the future climate carry uncertainties — a point that hasn't been fully communicated to the public.
The science of climate change often is expressed publicly in unambiguous terms.
For example, last summer, Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, told the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce: "I think we understand the mechanisms of CO2 and climate better than we do of what causes lung cancer. ... In fact, it is fair to say that global warming may be the most carefully and fully studied scientific topic in human history."
Vranes says, "When I hear things like that, I go crazy."
Nearly all climate scientists believe the Earth is warming and that human activity, by increasing the level of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, has contributed significantly to the warming.
But within the broad consensus are myriad questions about the details. How much of the recent warming has been caused by humans? Is the upswing in Atlantic hurricane activity due to global warming or natural variability? Are Antarctica's ice sheets at risk for melting in the near future?
To the public and policymakers, these details matter. It's one thing to worry about summer temperatures becoming a few degrees warmer.
It's quite another if ice melting from Greenland and Antarctica raises the sea level by 3 feet in the next century, enough to cover much of Galveston Island at high tide.
Models aren't infallible
Scientists have substantial evidence to support the view that humans are warming the planet — as carbon dioxide levels rise, glaciers melt and global temperatures rise. Yet, for predicting the future climate, scientists must rely upon sophisticated — but not perfect — computer models.
"The public generally underappreciates that climate models are not meant for reducing our uncertainty about future climate, which they really cannot, but rather they are for increasing our confidence that we understand the climate system in general," says Michael Bauer, a climate modeler at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in New York.
Gerald North, professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, dismisses the notion of widespread tension among climate scientists on the course of the public debate. But he acknowledges that considerable uncertainty exists with key events such as the melting of Antarctica, which contains enough ice to raise sea levels by 200 feet.
"We honestly don't know that much about the big ice sheets," North says. "We don't have great equations that cover glacial movements. But let's say there's just a 10 percent chance of significant melting in the next century. That would be catastrophic, and it's worth protecting ourselves from that risk."
Much of the public debate, however, has dealt in absolutes. The poster for Al Gore's global warming movie, An Inconvenient Truth, depicts a hurricane blowing out of a smokestack. Katrina's devastation is a major theme in the film.
Judith Curry, an atmospheric scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has published several research papers arguing that a link between a warmer climate and hurricane activity exists, but she admits uncertainty remains.
Like North, Curry says she doubts there is undue tension among climate scientists but says Vranes could be sensing a scientific community reaction to some of the more alarmist claims in the public debate.
For years, Curry says, the public debate on climate change has been dominated by skeptics, such as Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and strong advocates such as NASA's James Hansen, who calls global warming a ticking "time bomb" and talks about the potential inundation of all global coastlines within a few centuries.
That may be changing, Curry says. As the public has become more aware of global warming, more scientists have been brought into the debate. These scientists are closer to Hansen's side, she says, but reflect a more moderate view.
"I think the rank-and-file are becoming more outspoken, and you're hearing a broader spectrum of ideas," Curry says.
Young and old tension
Other climate scientists, however, say there may be some tension as described by Vranes. One of them, Jeffrey Shaman, an assistant professor of atmospheric sciences at Oregon State University, says that unease exists primarily between younger researchers and older, more established scientists.
Shaman says some junior scientists may feel uncomfortable when they see older scientists making claims about the future climate, but he's not sure how widespread that sentiment may be. This kind of tension always has existed in academia, he adds, a system in which senior scientists hold some sway over the grants and research interests of graduate students and junior faculty members.
The question, he says, is whether it's any worse in climate science.
And if it is worse? Would junior scientists feel compelled to mute their findings, out of concern for their careers, if the research contradicts the climate change consensus?
"I can understand how a scientist without tenure can feel the community pressures," says environmental scientist Roger Pielke Jr., a colleague of Vranes' at the University of Colorado.
Pielke says he has felt pressure from his peers: A prominent scientist angrily accused him of being a skeptic, and a scientific journal editor asked him to "dampen" the message of a peer-reviewed paper to derail skeptics and business interests.
"The case for action on climate science, both for energy policy and adaptation, is overwhelming," Pielke says. "But if we oversell the science, our credibility is at stake."
paraclete answered on 01/22/07:Some aspects might have been oversold, such as our ability to reverse the effect. It's not possible to connect some events with the climate change effect, but variability doesn't account for the continually upward trend in average global temperature and the result of this.
What cannot be oversold is the need to prepare for and cope with change. If we expect melting ice caps and inundation of coastal areas, it is only reasonable to begin to prevent habitation of low lying areas such as New Orleans. To rebuild that city is idiocy. Having been warned, we should take the warning. As an example, a city has a 1 in 100 year flood and the low lying parts of the city are flooded. What do you do? Allow high rise on the flood plain, or prevent building in the flood plain and turn it into gardens or sporting fields. The same is true of what needs to be done to cope with climate change.
I live in a place were we are enduring a severe drought, a longer drought that any in living memory or recorded history. If we fail to recognise that sustainability is now an issue and go back to the same old when rain eventually comes we are foolish. Our ability to sustain water supplies is now in serious question.Water hungry crops like rice and cotton have to go. There was a reason why this continent was sparcely populated and we are now finding out why. I suspect that many parts of the world are about have the same lesson. In places bound by tradition like China where there is no regulation the impacts of polluting industries is severe. Eventually they must act, if only to protect their own population | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/20/07 - The Democrats and Iran WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic leaders in Congress lobbed a warning shot Friday at the White House not to launch an attack against Iran without first seeking approval from lawmakers.
"The president does not have the authority to launch military action in Iran without first seeking congressional authorization," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told the National Press Club.
The administration has accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi affairs and contributing technology and bomb-making materials for insurgents to use against U.S. and Iraqi security forces.
President Bush said last week the U.S. will "seek out and destroy" networks providing that support. While top administration officials have said they have no plans to attack Iran itself, they have declined to rule it out.
This week, the administration sent another aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf _ the second to deploy in the region. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the buildup was intended to impress on Iran that the four-year war in Iraq has not made America vulnerable. The U.S. is also deploying anti-missile Patriot missiles in the region.
The U.S. has accused Tehran of trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday that Iran would not back down over its nuclear program, which Tehran says is being developed only to produce energy.
Reid made the comments as he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., spoke to the National Press Club on Democrats' view of the state of the union four days before Bush addresses Congress and the nation. His remarks were the latest Democratic display of concern about the possibility of military action in Iran and Bush's power to launch it.
Last week, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del., challenged the president's ability to make such a move. In a letter to Bush, Biden asked the president to explain whether the administration believes it could attack Iran or Syria "without the authorization of Congress, which does not now exist."
Meanwhile, Lee Hamilton, the Democratic co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Friday that the U.S. must try to engage Iran and Syria in a constructive dialogue on Iraq because of the countries' influence in the conflict.
The Bush administration, and several members of Congress, say they oppose talks with Iran and Syria because of their terrorist connections. Bringing the two countries into regional talks aimed at reducing violence in Iraq was one of the study group's recommendations.
"Do we have so little confidence in the diplomats of the United States that we're not willing to let them talk with somebody we disagree with?" Hamilton asked.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With all due respect to the co-chair of the Iraq Surrender Group ;He doesn't have a clue . If we can't credibly threaten military action, then retarding the Iranians' nuclear progress through diplomacy, which is what the Democrats claim to want, becomes absolutely impossible. I'm not saying that the Democrats should pass a resolution giving Bush a blank check to take action against Iran .But I am saying that the idiots Harry Reid and Joe Biden should keep their mouths shut and stop undermining the President's options .Were we to go into serious negotiations right now the Mahdi-hatter knows he is dealing with a divided American government.
One can only conclude that in the Democrat's view ,the consequences of attacking Iran are worse than the consequences of Ahmamadjihad with his hands on nukes.
paraclete answered on 01/21/07:You are all too worried about nukes in the hands of irresponsibles, cold war paranoia all over again, but Imamadjihad suffers from the same paranoia the Russians did, he's afraid that big dog barking at him will bite.
The only concern about Imamadjihad is that he has an irrational fear and hatred of Israel and this might prompt him to do something silly. Like Saddam he doesn't represent a military threat to the US but he might represent an economic one through the manipulation of the oil price or the closure of the Straits of Homuz. It's bargaining chip which he is playing to develop his nuclear program though why he needs nuclear energy when he has plenty of oil is difficult to see, just a good environmental citizen I guess | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 01/21/07 - 2009-12 And Democrats are in control of EVERYTHING
A. Cut and run
B. Stay and do what bush woulda done if they hadn't tied his hands. Then act like it was THEIR plan.
C. Try to reason with the snakes to not bite.
D. Keep on doing the Kerry I am for the war/against the war.
E. Other and what? paraclete answered on 01/21/07:Don't panic yet, two years is a long time in politics, right now you have the tail wagging the dog, but dogs are known to both chase their tails, and bit their tails. | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 01/21/07 - THE UNITED NATIONS:
What's this group of idiots doing these days?
HANK
paraclete answered on 01/21/07:I HAVE NO IDEA and I suspect no one else does either | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 01/20/07 - And when he looses, he can say he was misquoted? Mufti v Iemma: shock showdown for Premier's seat
Shock showdown ... Sheik Taj el-Din al-Hilaly is planning a challenge on three Labor seats, including that held by Premier Morris Iemma.
Taghred Chandab
January 21, 2007
CONTROVERSIAL Muslim leader Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly is planning an assault on three Labor seats in the state election - including that held by Premier Morris Iemma.
Sheik Hilaly is considering running against Mr Iemma in Lakemba, a safe Labor seat and the heart of Sydney's Islamic community, in the March 24 election.
He will also endorse Muslim candidates for the seats of Bankstown and Auburn, held by Labor's Tony Stewart and Barbara Perry. Speaking from Egypt last week, Sheik Hilaly gave the strongest indication yet that he may stand down as mufti.
"There must be a shake-up with new blood to be rid of the old guard and bring new blood, including the position of mufti," he told SBS Arabic radio.
"The position of mufti is a spiritual position that requires understanding of the faith, and an Australian heart that understands the issues - even if we create an Iftaa council until we find the appropriately qualified person."
Sheik Hilaly would not name candidates or reveal if he would stand for the seat. However, a close friend, Keysar Trad, said the Mufti was considering it.
"If the community intimates its desire to run him, we would expect him to accede to the community's wishes," he said, adding it was time the Muslim community took the election seriously.
"It is time that politics in NSW received a good shake-up and Iemma's dilemma will be in the Lakemba voters who are dissatisfied with the shortage of facilities and services and will vote accordingly," he said.
"Lakemba is the one of the most neglected electorates in NSW. These major political parties need a really good shake-up and there is no-one like the mufti to give them that shake-up."
The mufti told the Arabic program: "I am consulting with some of the brothers and, on my return, we will agree to nominate a sincere, honest Australian personality whose loyalty is totally to Australia and who is able to make contributions to the Lakemba electorate and NSW in general."
Mr Iemma said he was looking forward to going head to head with Sheik Hilaly. "I'm confident the majority of my electorate, including the majority of Muslim constituents, would back my views every day," he said.
In Lakemba, the Muslim community makes up nearly 13 per cent (8264) of the electorate. Mr Iemma won 64.21 per cent (24,060) of the 39,093 votes cast in the 2003 election.
Source: The Sun-Herald
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God helps us if he gets into parliament, we will all be more confused that we already are paraclete answered on 01/21/07:Now he has decided he just wants to select the candidates. What we say is bring it on, you dill, it will demonstrate just how much support you don't have, I expect he will try to get Football Great El Masri to run, but if he has as much sense as he has displayed thus far he will say no. You can't unseat a sitting candidate with ill placed religious fervour, not in Australia
When the minorities start to run this place I'm moving to New Zealand | | Question/Answer | | tropicalstorm asked on 01/21/07 - Bush bashing Like I've said before I am not a Bush-bot, but I just don't get the democrats they tie Bush's hands on the war then they say send more troops, then they say cut the funds, cut and run, then they 'say reason with them'. I swear they just say the opposite of whatever Bush wants just to make him look bad.
paraclete answered on 01/21/07:you know the left, they are a schitzo lot. Obviously, they are in two minds, not wanting to support the war, yet needing to support the troops, not wanting Bush to be successful, but wanting America to win | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/19/07 - WE could use some star wars technology about now. The NY Slimes is reporting today that China successfully carried out its first test of an antisatellite weapon last week .
Accordng to the Slimes ,Arms control experts called the test, in which the weapon destroyed an aging Chinese weather satellite, a troubling development that could foreshadow an antisatellite arms race.
Back in the 1980s ,Ted Kennedy and the rest of the appeasorcrats mocked Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative as "Star Wars" . Due to that ,the technology was not advanced at the pace Reagan desired ;Nor did Bush I or Clinton emphasis it. A 20 year advantage was squandered .
The world thus is less safe not because the US vigorously persued the technology but instead because we did not .
The Times notes that President Bush has picked up the mantle that was dropped by the 2 previous administrations .
The Bush administration has conducted research that critics say could produce a powerful ground-based laser weapon that would be used against enemy satellites.
The largely secret project, parts of which were made public through Air Force budget documents submitted to Congress last year, appears to be part of a wide-ranging administration effort to develop space weapons, both defensive and offensive.
The administration’s laser research is far more ambitious than a previous effort by the Clinton administration to develop an antisatellite laser, though the administration denies that it is an attempt to build a laser weapon.
The current research takes advantage of an optical technique that uses sensors, computers and flexible mirrors to counteract the atmospheric turbulence that seems to make stars twinkle. The weapon would essentially reverse that process, shooting focused beams of light upward with great clarity and force.
The Aussies are understandably upset about the Chinese test ;you know ..... falling debris and all that .
paraclete answered on 01/19/07:Undoubtedly someone's sky is falling because of this. One report suggested that in a conflict China could poke the US eye out, However, it seems far more practical than a laser | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/18/07 - Hillary attacks Obama's backround.
Taken from Insight Magazine :
Are the American people ready for an elected president who was educated in a Madrassa as a young boy and has not been forthcoming about his Muslim heritage?
This is the question Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s camp is asking about Sen. Barack Obama.
An investigation of Mr. Obama by political opponents within the Democratic Party has discovered that Mr. Obama was raised as a Muslim by his stepfather in Indonesia. Sources close to the background check, which has not yet been released, said Mr. Obama, 45, spent at least four years in a so-called Madrassa, or Muslim seminary, in Indonesia.
"He was a Muslim, but he concealed it," the source said. "His opponents within the Democrats hope this will become a major issue in the campaign."
When contacted by Insight, Mr. Obama’s press secretary said he would consult with “his boss†and call back. He did not.
Sources said the background check, conducted by researchers connected to Senator Clinton, disclosed details of Mr. Obama's Muslim past. The sources said the Clinton camp concluded the Illinois Democrat concealed his prior Muslim faith and education.
"The background investigation will provide major ammunition to his opponents," the source said. "The idea is to show Obama as deceptive."
In two best-selling autobiographies—"The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" and "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance"—Mr. Obama, born in Honolulu where his parents met, mentions but does not expand on his Muslim background, alluding only to his attendance at a "predominantly Muslim school."
The sources said the young Obama was given the name Hussein by his Muslim father, which the Illinois Democrat rarely uses in public.
His father was black and came from Kenya. Mr. Obama’s mother, the daughter of a farmer, came from Wichita, Kansas. Mr. Obama's parents divorced when he was two years old. His father returned to Kenya.
Later, Mr. Obama's mother married an Indonesian student and the family moved to Jakarta. Mr. Obama returned to Hawaii when he was 10 to live with his maternal grandparents.
The sources said the background check concerned Mr. Obama's years in Jakarta. In Indonesia, the young Obama was enrolled in a Madrassa and was raised and educated as a Muslim. Although Indonesia is regarded as a moderate Muslim state, the U.S. intelligence community has determined that today most of these schools are financed by the Saudi Arabian government and they teach a Wahhabi doctrine that denies the rights of non-Muslims.
Although the background check has not confirmed that the specific Madrassa Mr. Obama attended was espousing Wahhabism, the sources said his Democratic opponents believe this to be the case—and are seeking to prove it. The sources said the opponents are searching for evidence that Mr. Obama is still a Muslim or has ties to Islam.
Mr. Obama attends services at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago’s South Side. However, he is not known to be a regular parishioner.
"Obama's education began a life-long relationship with Islam as a faith and Muslims as a community," the source said. "This has been a relationship that contains numerous question marks."
The sources said Mr. Obama spent at least four years in a Muslim school in Indonesia. They said when Mr. Obama was 10, his mother and her second husband separated. She and her son returned to Hawaii.
"Then the official biography begins," the source said. "Obama never returned to Kenya to see relatives or family until it became politically expedient."
In both of his autobiographies, Mr. Obama characterizes himself as a Christian—although he describes his upbringing as mostly secular.
In “The Audacity of Hope,†Mr. Obama says, "I was not raised in a religious household." He describes his mother as secular, but says she had copies of the Bible, the Koran and the Bhagavad Gita in their home.
Mr. Obama says his father was "raised a Muslim, but by the time he met my mother he was a confirmed atheist...." Mr. Obama also describes his father as largely absent from his life. He says his Indonesian stepfather was "skeptical" about religion and "saw religion as not particularly useful in the practical business of making one's way in the world ...."
In the book, Mr. Obama briefly addresses his education in Indonesia. "During the five years that we would live with my stepfather in Indonesia, I was sent first to a neighborhood Catholic school and then to a predominantly Muslim school; in both cases, my mother was less concerned with me learning the catechism or puzzling out the meaning of the muezzin's call to evening prayer than she was with whether I was properly learning my multiplication tables."
Mr. Obama graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School; he became the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review. He later settled in Chicago, joined a law firm and began attending and helping local churches.
Mr. Obama is married to Michelle Robinson and they have two daughters, Malia and Sasha. In 1996, he was elected to the Illinois state Senate. Eight years later, he became a U.S. senator from Illinois.
The sources said Ms. Clinton regards Mr. Obama as her most formidable opponent and the biggest obstacle to the Democratic Party’s 2008 presidential nomination. They said Ms. Clinton has been angered by Mr. Obama's efforts to tap her supporters for donations.
In late 2006, when the Illinois senator demonstrated his intention to run for president, the Clinton campaign ordered a background check on Mr. Obama, the sources said. Earlier this week, Mr. Obama established an exploratory committee, the first step toward a formal race.
..............................
I love it when they feat on their own !
paraclete answered on 01/19/07:Isn't it wonderful a two year campaign, what a pain. I think I said the other day that is fellow had other disabilities | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 01/17/07 - Define "Lost" For months now, liberals have been demanding that the Bush Administration define what they mean by "winning the war in Iraq". On any number of occaisions, conservatives have define "winning" as developing a strong, capable, democratic government in Iraq that is able to handle its own internal and external security issues, and which safeguards the liberties of all its citizens. There have been some inroads made on these goals, as well as some setbacks. And by that definition we have not won the war yet, but we have most definitely not lost yet either.
Yet there are a number of Democrats and a few Republicans who continue to claim that we have "lost the war in Iraq". Nancy Pelosi has said it. Dodd has said it. Harry Reid has said it. Others say it as well. On this board, we have seen Chou say it over and over again. Clearly the conservatives among us are using a different definition of "win" and "lose" than the liberals among us.
So could those among us who say that we have lost the war in Iraq please explain what they mean by "lost"? We are clearly defining things differently, so a clarification of what "win" and "lose" mean in the context of the war in Iraq would be helpful in clearing up the misunderstanding. How do you define "lose"?
Elliot paraclete answered on 01/18/07:Lost in context
Failure to establish a satisfactory system of national and internal security
Failure to gain the hearts and minds of the people
Failure to find evidence of WMD
Failure to establish a constitution which shares the national wealth among all citizens irrespective of race, religion, political persuasion
I would consider that a fairly large failure considering the amount of time which has passed. Iraq is By No Means unique in regard to some of these characteristics, Somalia has been in a destabilised state for years. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/16/07 - Best quote... ...on the reaction to Bush's Iraq strategy? My vote thus far goes to Jonah Goldberg:
Saying we need a political solution is as helpful as saying “give peace a chance...It reminds me of the liberal obsession in the 1980s with getting inner-city gangs to settle their differences with break-dance competitions. If only Muqtada al-Sadr would moonwalk to peace!â€
Careful there Jonah, John Edwards might actually pick up on that and run with it...paraclete answered on 01/17/07:Give peace a chance, what sort of wierdo, pinko, rubbish is that. In order for there to be peace there must be disarmament.
The Jewish view is better. Shalom, peace when your enemies are defeated, only then can there be peace. These views are unpopular but Bush subscribes to them. For you to have peace you must get Bush to repent! It's like the plot of star wars.
The emperor provokes the others into attacking him, unleashes a war and then says the Good Guys will be annilihated and then there will be peace. The whole picture has become twisted and obscured. We have OBL playing the emperor, Bush playing Anikin, the clones killing everyone in sight and the good guys finishing last | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/16/07 - What exactly is... ...a "fact finding mission" anyway? And why are so many potential presidential candidates running around all over the globe? What business do they have injecting themselves in US foregin policy?
NM governor Bill Richardson has recently supposedly negotiated a ceasefire in the Sudan and met with the Norks over their nukes. Hillary is on a "fact-finding" mission to Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, calling for more troops to head off a "big spring offensive" by the Taliban and al Qaeda. Where will Obama go? Do any of these solo missions help further US interests? paraclete answered on 01/16/07:A fact finding mission is when they find the facts to support their theory. Hilliary will find the facts to promote the end of american participation in Iraq. Richardson will find the facts to support american participation in solving the world's problems. If Bush were to go he would find the facts to support an all out effort to eliminate al qaeda and the insurgents in Iraq. Perhaps he could send Jeb to find the facts, or perhaps he will wait four years until these facts become more favourable
| | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/15/07 - Bush on the climate change Reply to "BUSH TO REVERSE POSITION ON CLIMATE CRISIS "
Yes that is what the Guardian did indeed report yesterday,and I have no doubt that it's reporting is correct . Bush set us up for this by recently declaring his desire to add Polar Bears to the endangered species list .If the polar bear is listed as an endangered species, the US government must verify, by law, that nothing is being done to jeopardize the bears' existence. Just what protection we could give remains to be seen but animals designated to the list have fared well. 98 percent of those protected by the act have survived. But eliminating climate change is of course beyond the scope of the Endangered Species Act.
Besides ,there is no reason why Polar Bears cannot adapt to a changing climate according to an editorial by Investors.com :
Taking a somewhat different view is Mitch Taylor, a polar bear biologist with the government of Nunavut, a territory in Canada. According to Taylor, and contrary to greenie hype, climate change — particularly in the Arctic — is not pushing them to the brink of extinction. They have adapted and will continue to adapt to their environment.
In a 12-page report to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Taylor stated: "No evidence exists that suggests that both bears and the conservation systems that regulate them will not adapt and respond to the new conditions." Taylor emphasized polar bears' adaptability, saying they evolved from grizzly bears about 250,000 years ago and developed as a distinct species about 125,000 years ago, when climate change also occurred.
Writing in the Toronto Star in May, Taylor opined: "Of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or are increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present."
The current population of polar bears is said to have dwindled to 22,000 to 25,000. A half-century ago, before SUVs doomed the planet, there were only 8,000 to 10,000 polar bears, according to science writer Theo Richel.
Much of this increase is due to hunting restrictions that were put in place. And if polar bears, as reported, seem to be losing weight, it may be because increasing populations are competing for the same food supply.
Actually, global warming might help in that area. A reduction in ice cover creates a better habitat for seals, which are the bears' main food. Less ice cover means more sunlight producing more phytoplankton, increasing the supply of other food sources.
On land, blueberries, which the bears adore, would become more plentiful. Taylor says he's seen bears so full of blueberries they waddle.
The debate is not centered around whether or not the globe is getting warmer. It is centered around the cause of the globe getting warmer. The Earth has been steadily warming since 1700 which was before the industrial revolution . This fact negates the idea that it is soley being caused by increased CO2 emissions .
So the question becomes really ;Why does the Bush Adm. appear to be shifting opinion on climate change ? I think it really has something to do with geo-politics more than science. The clue is which publication made the announcement.
The Guardian does have a pipeline to inside 10 Downing St.As you know Blair and Bush have consulted with each other on a number of issues .Now this is clear speculaton ,but knowing how important global climate initiatives are to Tony Blair ,it would not suprise me if there is a quid pro quo that British continued support for the coalition in Iraq may depend on Bush softening his resistance to Kyoto-like initiatives . Blair is said to be extending his term as PM until a post-Kyoto agreement is reached .Bush and Blair held private talks on climate change before Christmas and there was a sense that Bush would agree on a cap on emissions ;something that much of American industry is already compliant with . Individual States have already enacted restrictions and if I read the new Congress correctly they will also pressure for changes in existing US regulations .
One thing that is clear ,the Kyoto protocols will not survive past the 2012 expiration date as written. They are hopelessly flawed and even signatory nations cannot keep to their committments .
paraclete answered on 01/15/07:hey let's all hear it for the polar bears, but no one is championing the penquins who have to endure the largest hole in the ozone layer yet seen, as well as destruction of their environment from melting ice sheets and fish shortages. The US regulations arn't going to protect them. While polars bears bloat themselves on blue berries, penquins starve. Anything Bush is doing is only because he is a lame duck and about as in danger of extinction as those penguins and he wants to leave something positive people will remember him by. Maybe he thinks because the Dems have the power, environmental legislation will get passed, and make him look good. | | Question/Answer | | Choux... asked on 01/15/07 - BUSH TO REVERSE POSITION ON CLIMATE CRISIS ISSUE Bush set for climate change U-turn
Downing Street says that belated US recognition of global warming could lead to a post-Kyoto agreement on curbing emissions
Gaby Hinsliff, Juliette Jowit and Paul Harris
Sunday January 14, 2007
The Observer
"George Bush is preparing to make a historic shift in his position on global warming when he makes his State of the Union speech later this month, say senior Downing Street officials.
Tony Blair hopes that the new stance by the United States will lead to a breakthrough in international talks on climate change and that the outlines of a successor treaty to the Kyoto agreement, the deal to curb emissions of greenhouse gases which expires in 2012, could now be thrashed out at the G8 summit......"
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:=D paraclete answered on 01/15/07:Let us guess, after his Iraq speech, we can expect that Bush will commit more resources to research in order to have a solution by November | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/13/07 - Iran supplying weapons to al-Sadr to use against US forces. New Arms Shipments to Iraqi Militia Detected
January 12, 2007 12:49 PM
Alexis Debat Reports:
US military intelligence sources tell ABC News that large shipments of weapons have been smuggled to Iraqi militia over the past five weeks , including dozens of Iranian supplied EFP's , or Explosive Form Projectiles, highly effective against armored vehicles. [EFP's ...otherwise known as IED's or shaped charges.]
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The weapons were sent to Moqtada al Sadr's Shi'a militia, known as "Mahdi’s Army" who control Sadr City, a slum in northern Baghdad with a population of 2 million.
US and Iraqi intelligence units on the ground detected the shipments which are believed to be of Iranian origin . In addition, US military sources tell ABC, Al Sadr has been working on his own "surge," actively recruiting hundreds of residents of Sadr City to supplement the 8 to 10,000 militiamen already believed to make up the "Mahdi Army" in Baghdad.
The article continues :Bahaa al-Araji, one of Moqtada al-Sadr's representatives in the Iraqi parliament, has told ABC News that the radical Shiite cleric has ordered his Mahdi Army not to attack US forces -- even if targeted.
Well then why would they need High-tech, armor-penetrating warheads ...to attack Sunnis who don't have tanks and Hummers ?
Explosives from Iran has killed and maimed too many US troops already . When are we going to declare what is so obvious,that we are and have been in a shooting war with Iran that we need to successfully prosecute ?We must initiate a policy of direct retaliation for every attack on Americans by Iranian agents or any Iranian supplied weapon used in an attack.
paraclete answered on 01/14/07:"{When are we going to declare what is so obvious,that we are and have been in a shooting war with Iran that we need to successfully prosecute ?"
"which are believed to be of Iranian origin"
Where is your proof, it's easy to say these were provided by Iran, but where is your proof?. Everything about Iraq has been a saga of bad intelligence and misinformation. There a puppetmasters involved in this conflict and they want this war to escalate, to draw the US into a broader conflict. the real question is where do these puppetmasters reside is it Imamadjihad in Tehran or I've~been~Fissled
in Ryidah or Bashed~my~donkey in Damascus, someone is pulling the strings. These Camel Jockeys don't have the guts to do it themselves, they just get someone more stupid than themselves to do it for them
Don't join the ranks of those who are stupid enough to believe what comes out of the Middle East. George Bush was and look where it got him. | | Question/Answer | | Choux... asked on 01/11/07 - FIRST POLL RESULTS ARE IN "Americans broadly reject President Bush's plan for a surge of U.S. forces into Iraq, with substantial majorities dismissing his arguments that it'll end the war more quickly and increase the odds of victory, an ABC News/Washington Post poll finds.
Indeed, rather than Bush bolstering public confidence, the national survey, conducted after his address to the nation on his new Iraq strategy, finds that a new high -- 57 percent -- think the United States is losing the war. Just 29 percent think it's winning."
CBS:
"Fifty percent of those who saw the speech said they disapprove of the president's proposals, while 37 percent said they approve. Just one-third of those surveyed said they support Mr. Bush's call to send more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq.
Following the speech, 68 percent of Americans -- the same number as prior to the speech -- said they were uneasy about the president's ability to make decisions about Iraq."
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Bush made no inroads into his failing public opinion about his ability to conduct his War of Adventurism in Iraq after his speech last night. There is no rescuing the low opinion of his Presidency by this move to add 20,000 more troops to the Baghdad area.
The Bush Presidency is sooooo over; a complete failure in almost all areas despite having a rubberstamp Congress until a few days ago.
I guess he will just have to up his psychiatric drug intake over the next two years. paraclete answered on 01/12/07:this is the problem with your political system. In ours he would have been out of there by now. Fixed terms are a bummer eh? | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/11/07 - Kelo reconsidered At least it could be if SCOTUS agrees to hear and extortion case that will be submitted Friday.
Yes ,extortion ;that is the only way to read into what is happening in Port Chester, N.Y.
Bart Didden and his business partner, Domenick Bologna owned a piece of property in downtown Port Chester. They bought it, paid off the mortgage, paid their taxes, and in 2003, they decided to lease that property for the construction of a CVS retail pharmacy. Unfortunately for them, their property fell within the village's redevelopment district, and so the village's chosen developer ,G&S Port Chester ,dropped by for a friendly chat.
Since G&S had been guaranteed full use of the village's powers of eminent domain in developing downtown Port Chester, it made Didden and Bologna 'an offer they can't refuse ': give G&S $800,000 or a 50% stake in the CVS pharmacy or G&S will have the village condemn the property.Didden and Bologna said no , and the next day their property was condemned. Adding insult to injury, G&S announced plans to build on the .76 acre plot a Walgreen's pharmacy.
Friday the two will ask SCOTUS to review the case . If the court does then I am almost certain they will at the least put restrictions on how eminent domain can be utilized by local governments .
Of course if the idiots in the NY State Legislature would get off their asses and put restrictions on eminent domain like 34 States have already enacted since Kelo ........... never mind . This is NY we are talking about.
paraclete answered on 01/12/07:sometimes I wonder what you have for laws in north american. Somewhere in your constitution it says something about just compensation, so how can these people have laws which conflicit with that. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/11/07 - Darn that global warming again Governor Directs State Government to Prepare for Extremely Cold Temperatures
By: Office of the Governor
Published: Jan 11, 2007 at 08:38
In anticipation of unusually cold temperatures forecast throughout much of California in the coming days, Gov. Schwarzenegger directed state agencies to activate the extreme temperature protocols established last year to assist the most vulnerable populations in the state and asked local governments and the people of California to take common sense precautions in the unseasonably cold weather.
"Northern and Central California will see night time temperatures drop into the teens and low 20s," said Gov. Schwarzenegger. "Because of the extreme cold, I have directed state government to spring into action to protect our most vulnerable communities. The state has made 11 National Guard armories available and will make additional facilities available, such as fairgrounds, should local governments deem it necessary."
Among the steps the state is taking are:
* Protecting Seniors and the Disabled: The Department of Health Services is making contact with its licensed facilities and local health departments to ensure that they are aware of the cold weather event and to inform them of protocols to protect the health and safety of the vulnerable populations in their care given the extreme weather. Additionally, the Department of Social Services is making contact with County Welfare Directors to ensure that they are aware of the cold weather event and ensure that In Home Supportive Service (IHSS) workers are aware of the event and the protocols to protect the health and safety of the vulnerable populations in their care given the extreme weather.
* Warming Centers: The California National Guard and the California Department of Food and Agriculture are working with local government officials to make armories and fair grounds available to supplement their sheltering needs. Currently, there are 11 California National Guard armories that have been opened as shelters from the cold in Gilroy, Sunnyvale, Santa Cruz, Merced, Sylmar, Ventura, Los Angeles (Federal Ave), Culver City, Santa Ana, Fullerton and Glendale. They are opened daily from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. Below is a list with addresses to the facilities. An additional 16 locations in parts of the state expected to be hardest hit by the cold weather have been identified and put on standby should local governments request the assistance.
National Weather Service has reported to OES that temperatures will drop into the 20s and 30s Wednesday night into Thursday, followed by daytime temperatures in the mid 40s in most areas. On Friday and into the weekend, temperatures will drop further, reaching the high teens to low 20s in most areas at night, and continued daytime lows in the mid 40s.
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You'd think all those grenhouse gases in California would keep those record lows away, wouldn't you? By the way, we're expecting a high of 20 here in the high plains of Texas on Monday, so all you people enjoying the record warmth think of us poor, cold Texans, Californians, and snow-packed Coloradoans this weekend. paraclete answered on 01/12/07:It's all symantics, you have to stop talking about "global warming" and start talking about "climate change". once the symantics are out of the way it starts to make sense. We are having unusual weather events all over the planet, why you even did without a hurricane season this year | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/11/07 - Is the embryonic stem cell debate obsolete ? Science Obviates Politics
By JAY LEFKOWITZ
January 11, 2007
The new Democratic leadership in Congress thinks it has a winning issue and possibly the votes to defy President Bush on stem cell funding. But an announcement this week by scientists at Harvard and Wake Forest universities appears to vindicate his policy and may relegate the national debate over stem cell research to a political side show.
Researchers have found that amniotic fluid is a fertile source for the kind of stem cells, called pluripotent, that can turn into several types of human cell tissue and potentially cure diseases. They already have succeeded in converting these stem cells into brain, liver, and bone cells, and even into heart cells that could grow to be replacement heart valves.
For five years, Democrats have sharply criticized the president's policy, with Democratic candidates making the issue a mainstay of their advertisements. The president has been all but blamed for the fact that millions of Americans with diseases and disabilities have not been cured. Most famously, in a speech at the last Democratic National Convention Ronald Reagan Jr. said that stem cell research "may be the greatest medical breakthrough in our or in any lifetime" and that these cells could "cure a wide range of fatal and debilitating illnesses: Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, lymphoma, spinal-cord injuries, and much more."
In order to understand the criticism of the president's stem cell policy, it is important to recall what he actually decided on August 9, 2001. At the time, federal funds had never been used to support research on embryonic stem cells. Although the president wanted to open the door to government funding for seemingly promising medical research, he objected to the fact that taxpayer dollars might be used to support or encourage the destruction of human embryos, which were believed to be the only source of embryonic stem cells. So the president struck a compromise. He allowed federal funding, but only on stem cell lines that were already in existence — as he put it, "where the life and death decision had already been made."
In early 2001, the president met with prominent scientists who told him that even a few stem cell lines would be sufficient to determine whether embryonic stem cell therapies were viable. In an interview a few weeks before the president's decision, Stanford University researcher Irving Weissman said that "a finite number would be sufficient. If we had 10-15 lines, no one would complain." Yet almost from the day the president announced his policy, the most often heard criticism has been that it does not permit sufficient stem cell research.
Initially, there may have been some credence to this argument. Throughout the latter half of 2001, only one stem cell line was available to researchers, in large part due to intellectual property issues and the reluctance of foreign institutions to make their lines accessible. But by 2003, 12 lines were available for federal funding, and today there are 22. These 22 lines have resulted in more than 700 shipments of stem cells to federally funded researchers, and the National Institutes of Health is poised to make thousands more available upon request. Moreover, given the absence of any restrictions on privately funded stem cell research, one imagines that if pharmaceutical companies believed that such therapies were indeed viable, there would be no shortage of private capital investment in the field.
At any rate, thanks to the development of new technologies and methods, many of which were developed with federal funds made available by the president's policy, there appear to be multiple sources of embryonic stem cells whose derivation does not require embryo destruction. The president's Council on Bioethics in May 2005 laid out several potential ways for harvesting embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos, and all of them have since been attempted and detailed in scientific journals.
The possibility of cell re-programming also is promising. Scientists from Japan's Institute for Frontier Medical Science have shown that altering just four genetic factors was sufficient to change adult cells into pluripotent stem cells. If this technique proves successful, it will allow an ample supply of these stem cells without the ethical complications of embryo destruction.
And now the news from Harvard and Wake Forest researchers is the most promising of all. If their work stands the test of time, there will be little argument that taxpayers should be forced to underwrite what many believe is the destruction of human life. As Congress prepares to override the president's stem cell policy, and as the president prepares to use his veto pen for only the second time — the first time was also to block stem cell legislation — we should keep in mind that science sometimes can get in the way of a good political fight.
Mr. Lefkowitz served as a domestic policy adviser to President Bush between 2001 and 2003.
paraclete answered on 01/12/07:no it's still immoral to create human beings for the purpose of medical research | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/11/07 - Who's insane? ![]()
That seems to be the consensus among the critics, that Bush is insane for doing the same over and over in Iraq and after last night's speech it's "the same old story." Let's compare the 'insanity.'
As I pointed out yesterday, the backlash against the US over Somalia has begun. Tom noted the world is now "calling for blue helmet rapists to intervene."
Back in 1992, Boutros Boutros-Ghali called for military intervention in Somalia - now get this - "after traditional U.N. peace-keeping efforts have failed" to control the situation.
The first UN peacekeeping mission was established in 1948 to monitor and keep the peace between Israel and the Arab states. Since then a number of UN peacekeeping missions have taken place there, with armed forces in the Sinai, the Golan Heights, Lebanon and such. That's worked well hasn't it?
In 1949 the UN established the United Nations Military Observer Group to supervise the India and Pakistan ceasefire, and 58 years and thousands of dead later there is still no resolution to the Kashmir conflict.
Korea, Bosnia, Rwanda, the Congo, Sierra Leone, East Timor anyone?
Who's insane, Bush for continuing to press forward in the war on terror in spite of the appeasers and cowards, with the Husseins gone, al-Zarqawi gone, the Taliban out of power, two new functioning albeit delicate democracies? Or the rest of the world for calling on the UN to "keep the peace" in Somalia and the Sudan and rein in Iran and North Korea? That same UN whose history of sanctions, 'deplorings' and 'interventions' (doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result) have done nothing to stop the loss of millions of lives?
paraclete answered on 01/12/07:for a man who has few places to go and little strategy, he's between a rock and a hard place.
If he pulls out of Iraq this side of the election he's likely to lose the election for his party, If he escalates this "unwinnable" war, he will be condemned and lose the election for his party,
So making small steps in both directions at the same time is seen as doing something different, this is afterall politics and it's all in the eye of the beholder.
1. he goes in hard for a short time, hoping that he will make a real difference to the security situation without getting a lot of americans killed.
2 he announces a timetable for the commencment of withdrawal.
3. he tells his Iraqi buddies that the can is really theirs and he won't carry it any more, at least not without being able to shoot at the insurgents of all persuasions. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/10/07 - That didn't take long As I suspected yesterday, the critics are out over US air strikes in Somalia...
UN chief Ban Ki-moon said, "The secretary-general is concerned about the new dimension this kind of action could introduce to the conflict and the possible escalation of hostilities that may result." (Though I digress, I heard another great Dennis Miller, "I took the UN tour recently...even the guidebook is spinless.")
Italy's Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said Rome opposed "unilateral initiatives that could spark new tensions in an area that is already very destabilised".
Ken Menkhaus, a 'US Horn of Africa specialist' said, "Before this, it was just tacit support for Ethiopia. Now the US has fingerprints on the intervention and is going to be held more accountable...This has the potential for a backlash both in Somalia and the region."
Amadeu Altafaj, spokesman for EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel said, "Any incident of this kind is not helpful in the long term."
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said the US attacks "complicate the situation in Somalia and could increase the tensions that are already strong in the country."
The African Union’s chief executive, Alpha Oumar Konare stressed "the need for all concerned actors to refrain from any action likely to complicate the current situation."
Richard Cornwell, analyst with South Africa’s Institute for Security Studies, said the strikes "certainly complicates matters" for an African peacekeeping mission:
"Any sort of peacekeeping mission is fraught with difficulties if there is no political situation it can be hooked on to...Certainly it would be a matter of some surprise were the AU to be able to mount a sizeable or effective operation in Somalia within the next few months."
Norway said Washington's explanation was "not sufficient" and that "We support the fight against terrorism but we think that the best way to pursue the fight is in a court of law," according to Norwegian foreign ministry undersecretary Raymond Johansen.
al-AP's Tom Raum apparently thinks Bush is just playing politics:
"Send in more troops, set goals for the Iraqi government and assure Americans it's better to wage war there than here. And now the U.S. military is back in Somalia, too, once again attacking suspected terrorist targets...
As Bush outlines his new Iraq strategy, he may well mention the new U.S. airstrikes in Somalia that targeted Islamic extremists.
He can cite the war on terrorism's multiple fronts. It fits in with his fight-them-abroad-not-at-home thesis. Administration allies suggest the U.S. withdrawal from Somalia in 1993 helped strengthen the al-Qaida terror network."
There you have it, Bush has screwed everything up again. He attacked a country that was not a threat without provocation, he didn't ask the UN (or Europe) and he's mucked up the effort to get a coalition together to clean things up. No word on any criticism of Ethiopa's involvement. paraclete answered on 01/10/07:The waters are very muddied in Somalia, is The US fighting a rival islamist regime, or Al Qaeda fighters supporting that regime? There is talk now of US special forces being used. The strikes against Al Qaeda were opportunist. IF they knew they were there, why wait until now.
There appears to be a lack of will in this fight against Al Qaeda with assassination of it's leaders the apparent goal | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/10/07 - Questions Elliot asked this in my previous post and I thought I'd asked them here.
Why is Darfur the "right war" and Somalia the "wrong war"? Or Iraq, for that matter? paraclete answered on 01/10/07:there is only war, Dafur is a case of civilians been driven from their homes and attacked, a genocide,, the government will not protect them, so intervention appears needed.
In Somalia there is a government and the enemy is Islam, the CIC, a rival political force. Iraq was wrong! there was a government which had existed for years, some of it with US backing and complicity. The US did nothing about it's actions then, so to wait until to it was reduced by economic sanctions was cowardise | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 01/10/07 - A name for the Mahdi Hatter In the prior post, Tom mentioned:
We have to settle on a name for the Mahdi Hatter
I kind of like Ahm~a~mad~jihad .I have been spelling it that way for a couple of weeks and nobody has seemed to notice.
I figure it's a topic worthy of its own string.
I actually did notice that Tom had been spelling it that way, and I approve.
I've actually been using "Ahmad-genocide", but I think Tom's is pretty good too.
Anyone else have an opinion? (What, am I nuts? Of course you all have opinions...)
Elliotparaclete answered on 01/10/07:it's now just a small step to Imamadjihad who along with his friend kofimaman has terrorised the US into thinking they are under attack | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/09/07 - U.S. strike in Somalia targets 3 terrorists By Josh Meyer
Tribune Newspapers: Los Angeles Times
Published January 9, 2007
WASHINGTON -- A U.S. Air Force Special Operations gunship struck a location in southern Somalia on Monday where three Al Qaeda operatives suspected in the bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa more than eight years ago were believed to be hiding, a U.S. defense official said.
U.S. military and counterterrorism officials said they did not yet know whether any of the three fugitives had been killed.
"It's not clear what the outcome is at this point," said the counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the operation was classified.
U.S. officials have secretly been negotiating with Somali clans believed to have sheltered the three men, hoping to obtain information about their locations. It could not be determined Monday whether the air strike was based on information provided by the clans.
The U.S. AC-130 gunship that carried out the strike was based in Djibouti, just north of Somalia. The strike was first reported by CBS News and independently confirmed by the Los Angeles Times.
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ABC reported earlier this morning that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed was believed to have been killed. What do you suppose the reaction's going to be from the left for such a brazen, unprovoked attack?
On a side note the BBC, as astute as ever, offered this photo of the AC-130 with the following caption:
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The heavily-armed AC-130 gunship can fly at night
Wow, what a technological breakthrough, the AC-130 can fly at night!
paraclete answered on 01/10/07:It is good news that the americans are again active in pursuing al qaeda | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/09/07 - And you thought LA was bad... Iran smog 'kills 3,600 in month'
Air pollution is estimated to have killed nearly 10,000 people in Tehran over a one-year period, including 3,600 in a month, Iranian officials say.
Most of the deaths were caused by heart attacks and respiratory illnesses brought on by smog, they said.
The scale of the problem led one senior official to say living in the Iranian capital was like "collective suicide".
Cheap fuel encourages car use in Iran, correspondents say, and many vehicles do not meet global emissions standards.
"It is a very serious and lethal crisis, a collective suicide," the director of Tehran's clean air committee, Mohammad Hadi Heydarzadeh, told an Iranian newspaper.
"A real revolution is needed to resolve this problem."
He said air quality had worsened and was linked to some 3,600 deaths in October. Many of the deaths were caused by heart attacks brought on by the air pollution.
New figures showed a sharp rise in pollution-related deaths in Iran, where 9,900 people died of pollution in the previous Iranian year (March 2005 to March 2006).
The latest assessments were based on World Bank figures which extrapolate mortality rates according to certain levels of pollution.
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Everyone ready to “bow down to the greatness of the Iranian nation?†Maybe the Mahdi Hatter will buddy up with alGore to fix this? Come to think of it, the two of them do kind of resemble each other...
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![]() paraclete answered on 01/10/07:SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM? all the US has to do is export it's gas guzzling SUV minus the anti polution modifications to Iran and solve two problems, How to lower emissions and how to deal with the Iranians. | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 01/08/07 - LEGAL DEFINITION OF LIBEL:
Since POLITICS is a touchy subject with many people, I thought it best to post the following:
"Libel is a method of defamation expressed by print, writing, pictures or signs. In its most general sense, any publication that is injurious to the reputation of another."
Source: "Black's Law Dictionary" - Fifth Edition
I don't think it's a good idea to attack the personalities and beliefs of our Experts in clarifications and/or elsewhere!
HANK
(Paralegal)
paraclete answered on 01/09/07:libel has been used to frighten off opponents for centuries Hank. Opinions are free and may be expressed freely | | Question/Answer | | Dark_Crow asked on 01/08/07 - a record $100 billion. ...................... “Since the attacks of September 11th, 2001, Congress has approved about $500 billion for Iraq, Afghanistan and other terrorism-fighting efforts.
The White House is working on its largest-ever appeal for more war funds - a record $100 billion. It will be submitted along with Mr Bush's February 5th budget.â€
ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2007/0108/breaking4.htm
Here is what I suppose: Suppose that if all this money had been spent to alleviate hunger and suffering in, say sub-Africa. Would we still have Terrorism against the U.S. or, would friends of the Terrorist rise up against them?
paraclete answered on 01/08/07:It will take more than money and sub-saharian Africa isn't the place where you will stem the tide of terrorism. Where did this terrorism start, fester and become a life style? it happened with the establishment of Israel and the west (in particular the US) stood by and let it grow, now they reap the result of their laziness | | Question/Answer | | Choux... asked on 01/07/07 - "greenwashing" OIL LIARS ARE FINISHED!!!! Web Exclusive
By Jerry Adler
Newsweek
Updated: 6:10 p.m. CT Jan 4, 2007
Jan. 4, 2007 - For more than three decades, the tobacco industry carried on a campaign of disinformation intended to mislead Americans about the health risks of smoking—a strategy that has been dubbed “manufacturing uncertainty†in the minds of consumers. And ever since global warming emerged as an environmental threat, there has been a well-funded public campaign to cast doubt on the scientific consensus about the danger of global warming and its source in fossil-fuel combustion. A report this week by the Union of Concerned Scientists finds a parallel between the efforts to whitewash tobacco and “greenwash†oil—and points the finger of responsibility at the world’s largest corporation, ExxonMobil.
Under its former chairman and CEO, Lee Raymond, who retired in 2005 as one of the best-paid corporate executives in history, ExxonMobil was well known for its hostility to government regulations on emissions of carbon dioxide. But, according to the report, the op-eds and position papers were only the visible tip of Exxon’s effort to fund a small group of researchers and an overlapping network of think tanks that could be relied on to spread the message that global warming was nothing to worry about—or at least, nothing the government could or should do anything about. Their frequently repeated call for “sound science†on global warming echoes the tobacco industry’s endless demand for more research on whether cigarettes really, truly, unquestionably cause cancer.
Of course, cigarette companies weren’t concerned just about future sales, but the billions of dollars in compensation they eventually had to … umm … cough up. ExxonMobil’s motivation, presumably, is to protect a fantastically lucrative market: its 2005 profits of $36 billion made it the most profitable corporation in history. But that very wealth puts them in a position both to shape and eventually dominate the postcarbon energy world, if they choose to do so. Ironically, as the report points out, the company and its shareholders will suffer if it gets left behind in the transition to less polluting forms of energy.
For its part, ExxonMobil—after promulgating, and then withdrawing 20 minutes later, a statement that called the report an “attempt to smear our name and confuse the discussionâ€â€”wants you to know that it now accepts some responsibility for global warming. Specifically, and in boldface, it admitted that “It is clear today that greenhouse gas emissions are one of the factors that contribute to climate change, and that the use of fossil fuels is a major source of these emissions.†That would seem, on the face of it, to contradict the assertions of some of its favored researchers in the ever-shrinking coterie of global-warming skeptics. The question, of course, is what specific policies ExxonMobil is willing to accept to curb those emissions. With a new Congress taking office, climate change is likely to be a much more salient issue this year than it has been for the last six—so ExxonMobil will have the chance to show if it means what it’s saying now."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ paraclete answered on 01/08/07:A VERY BADLY WRITTEN PIECE | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 01/07/07 - DEMOCRACY:
I'm beginning to wonder if a Democracy is the best form of government. Too much 'hurray for me and to hell with you' going on. Our Constitution was set up to have State and Local governments take care of 95% of our business, leaving the federal government with 5%. I wonder what would happen if we didn't have the Bill of Rights.
What's your take on this?
HANK
paraclete answered on 01/07/07:Obviously benevolent dictatorship is preferable however this does lead to despotism, somewhat like the present situation. The problem with a federal government system where their functions are basicly trade, diplomacy, military and taxation, they begin to acquire power by various means not envisaged in the constitution.
In my own nation we have interesting developments of this process.
The corporations power, that is the federal power to regulate the activities of corporations under regulation of interstae commerce, has been acquired from the states and used to introduce draconian industrial relations legislation. Industrial relations powers are vested in the states.
The external affairs power was used to protect a world hertiage listed river from being damed to provide augmentation of hydro electric power production. A strange decision in the existing concerns about environmental matters.
The states have taken away the local regulatory powers of local goverment by declaring their power over projects of special interest under environmental protection and other leglislation, thereby forcing through undesirable projects in local communities
The states have used their powers to take away water rights from private land holders and the federal government has then used it's powers over interstate commerce to
regulate the flows of rivers and their tributaries. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/03/07 - Iran's Secret Plan For Mayhem The NY Sun is reporting today what has to me been evident for a long time now ;that Iran is supplying both sides of the internal conflict in Iraq.
Iran is supporting both Sunni and Shiite terrorists in the Iraqi civil war, according to secret Iranian documents captured by Americans in Iraq.
The news that American forces had captured Iranians in Iraq was widely reported last month, but less well known is that the Iranians were carrying documents that offered Americans insight into Iranian activities in Iraq.
An American intelligence official said the new material, which has been authenticated within the intelligence community, confirms "that Iran is working closely with both the Shiite militias and Sunni Jihadist groups." The source was careful to stress that the Iranian plans do not extend to cooperation with Baathist groups fighting the government in Baghdad, and said the documents rather show how the Quds Force — the arm of Iran's revolutionary guard that supports Shiite Hezbollah, Sunni Hamas, and Shiite death squads — is working with individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq and Ansar al-Sunna.
Another American official who has seen the summaries of the reporting affiliated with the arrests said it comprised a "smoking gun." "We found plans for attacks, phone numbers affiliated with Sunni bad guys, a lot of things that filled in the blanks on what these guys are up to," the official said.
One thing in the article I find that might be in error. All the information that I have seen indicates that it was Muqtada al -Sadr and not "Sunni Jihadists" who attacked the Golden Mosque in Samarra . At the time he was convieniently out of the country confering with Hezbollah in Lebanon where he pledged that he and his militia were ‘at the service’ of Syria and Iran, saying in Damascus, “I am at the service of Syria and Iran. I will defend all Muslim countries with all means.†Those means evidently included the precision demolition of the ‘The Golden Mosque’, where the tombs of the 10th and 11th Imams were "amazingly" left undamaged by the massive explosion .In fact ;The explosives were arranged to collapse the dome while leaving the critical tombs unharmed and demolition teams lead by Iranians were in the mosque for 48 hrs arranging the explosives .
Sadr was put on an aircraft filled with special ops Hezbollah agentsw along with communications and intelligence equipment to be used in the service of Tehran. Al-Sadr then ,while calling for calm and for the coalition to leave Iraq ,allowed his militia to run a coordinated attack against Sunni mosques . This started the tit-for-tat murders that have been occuring in Iraq since Febuary .
Want and exit strategy ? The road out of Iraq goes through Tehran .
paraclete answered on 01/04/07: "The road out of Iraq goes through Tehran"
that is a very poor strategy. in fact you could call it a bushite strategy. Iran is a enemy of the west and america in particular, but then america has many enemies, some with whom it trades and some it doesn't. the only good thing about Iran is america didn't set up the regime, so it can appear righteous this time, but war isn't the answer, it wasn't the answer in Iraq and it isn't the answer now. you have to take a broader view here. Iran will eventually implode. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/03/07 - Ethiopia Elliot has been mentioning what occured but what was little reported about the sweep of the Ethiopian Army through Sudan to remove the jihadists there from power . I responded to a Question about Israel on the other board with this observation :
I think we should all go to school on how the Ethiopians handled the jihadist in Sudan this week . http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...345844,00.html
The funny thing is I hear no one belly aching about disproportionate force. ( rumors abound about US forces in the region supplying "support" btw ).This brief and successful military operation should send a message to the ‘realists’ of the Baker/ Hamilton Iraq Surrender Group and our State Department that appeasement doesn’t pay.
The irony is that Israel with its advanced military equipment and highly trained forces could accomplish another similar victory in the war against Jihadistan by re-entering Gaza and rooting out the Hamas and al Qaeda terrorists killing Israelis daily with the unabated rain of Qassem rockets.
Now that I think about it ;isn't Ethiopia the purported location of the lost tribes of Israel ?
Ralph Peters has a good update today in the NY Post .
To Americans, Somalia is "Black Hawk Down" country, where our forces won a lopsided military victory only to have President Bill Clinton surrender to our enemies - the greatest single act of encouragement our government ever gave to the Islamist movement. We picture Somalia as a poor, dusty, war-ravaged place (all true) and as small, remote and unimportant (all wrong).
Somalia is the size of Texas with the Panhandle trimmed back; it has the longest coast on the African continent - over 2,000 miles of shoreline vitally positioned on the Indian Ocean and Red Sea. An artificial country slapped together by retreating colonial powers (who pretended that endlessly warring tribes would all just get along), its population by current guesses is just under 9 million.
The province of Somaliland, in the country's north, is peaceful, relatively prosperous - and anxious to secede. But the international community insists that all borders are sacrosanct. The United Nations would have preferred to hand over Somaliland to the Islamists rather than accept the will of Somaliland's people - who don't want a damned thing to do with Sharia law.
The United Nations did formally recognize the national coalition government - then, when faced with the Islamic Courts Council's aggression, did what the U.N. always does when confronted with fanaticism and terror: Nothing.
Fortunately, Christian-majority Ethiopia had had enough of Somali-backed Islamist subversion among its Muslim minority. Despite its serious internal flaws, the government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi did civilization a great favor by ignoring diplomatic table manners and confronting the Islamists in Mogadishu.
paraclete answered on 01/03/07:one element would appear to have been missing in Somalia, popular support for the jihadists, the Somalie people have had long enough to get sick of this sort of thing and so without popular support the Jihadists were easily overrun.
To suggest the same might be possible at this time in either Gaza or Iraq is lunacy | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/02/07 - Would you repeat that? As you all know, James Brown was laid to rest last week, in a funky way befitting the "Godfather of Soul." No disrespect to the man - may God rest his soul - but did anyone besides me find Sharpton's eulogy a little curious to say the least?
In life and in death, James Brown should be remembered for his impact on music and on the world, not for the many people that surrounded him, the Rev. Al Sharpton said Friday in a passionate eulogy befitting the godfather of soul.
"When he started singing, we were sitting in the back of the bus. When he stopped singing we were flying Lear jets"
Who is this 'we' he's talking about? Al, Michael and Jesse? Am I the only guy in the country that sees disrespect, insensitivity and a complete lack of judgment in that comment? How many of Al's constituency are "flying lear jets"? paraclete answered on 01/03/07:from the back of the bus to lear jets. Let me say the view is clearer from the back of the bus, In a lear jet you can only see the clouds | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 12/27/06 - Just for fun here is a picture of John Kerry dining with the troops recently . Note the number of empty chairs surrounding the esteemed Senator .
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some brilliant captions and comments for this provided by Freepers include :
the table sign says "reserved for Mensa members and billionaires only"
I can read lips,I think he is telling a joke ....yea thats it... a joke
He's on a listening tour....... you know, one of those "can you hear me now" moments.
Hanoi Bob is well known for being a friendly fire (usually his own) shrapnel magnet. I wouldn't want to be around him either.
Did he ask for a Purple Heart when he shot himself in his foot with his last "joke"?
"I was in Vietnam, did you know that?"
"Can I get me a huntin' license here?? Yuck, yuck...."
"Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon?"
"You call this WHAT on a shingle?"
"Can my wife cook... I dunno. But she's pretty good at hiring them. French, you know; you simply must be French to make a decent quiche."
"What do you mean I can't get a manicurist appointment? DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?"
paraclete answered on 01/03/07:why do we need pictures of has beens? | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 12/27/06 - OK Michael, let's hear it You may recall the following from Michael Moore on November 26th:
The responsibility to end this war now falls upon the Democrats. Congress controls the purse strings and the Constitution says only Congress can declare war. Mr. Reid and Ms. Pelosi now hold the power to put an end to this madness. Failure to do so will bring the wrath of the voters. We aren't kidding around, Democrats, and if you don't believe us, just go ahead and continue this war another month. We will fight you harder than we did the Republicans.
It's been 31 days Mr. Moore, let the fight begin. If you wish to email Mike as I am about to do, click here.
Happy New Year, Mike.
Steveparaclete answered on 01/03/07:yes let the great war of words begin, or is it continue unabated. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 01/02/07 - Bush's last chance? In more al-AP analysis...
DEB RIECHMANN
Associated Press
CRAWFORD, Texas - Whatever the reasons for President Bush's lengthy deliberations on a new Iraq policy, they undoubtedly will serve two political purposes: Letting the grim milestone of 3,000 U.S. deaths in Iraq and the potential backlash from Saddam Hussein's execution pass before the public hears his new ideas.
The execution of Saddam by his countrymen would help legitimize the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Yet, if it incites more bloodshed, it would remind Americans that the situation is "grave and deteriorating," as the recent Iraq Study Group concluded.
The American public has grown weary of the war and even though past wars have seen vastly higher casualties, a U.S. death toll topping 3,000 - which is approaching - would shine a spotlight on the human toll of U.S. involvement.
For now, Bush has been able to fend off calls for withdrawal of U.S. troops. Yet if the situation in Iraq doesn't improve - and quickly - those calls could begin to drown out whatever new ideas he puts forth in the early weeks of the new year.
Americans are a patient lot and likely will give Bush the time and backing he needs to take another shot at getting a U.S. policy in Iraq that works. And the new Democratically led Congress, which convenes on Jan. 4, probably won't block the commander in chief if he decides to briefly increase troop levels.
"It is likely his last chance, however," said analyst Jon Alterman. "Republicans and Democrats alike will be looking for early signs that the president's policy isn't working, in which case they will quickly head for the exits. My sense is that this is taking a long time because they know it's their last shot."
Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president, said Friday that neither the approaching 3,000th U.S. death in Iraq nor Saddam's execution is "dictating when" Bush's speech will be delivered. Those two events, though, will influence its reception by the American people.
When Saddam was pulled from his hiding spot in a spider hole in December 2003, public opinion shifted in Bush's favor. But the former Iraqi leader's execution likely would have less inclination to sway public opinion now because Americans' views have hardened as the war has intensified.
The White House viewed Saddam's execution as an "important milestone in the Iraqi people's efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law."
Still, skeptics of the president's policy can argue that remains mired in violent turmoil. And those opposed to a surge in U.S. troops will use the 3,000th death as a reason to continue opposing one.
"I think there was a time when the death of Saddam Hussein would have given Bush the kind of political capital he needs to call for an increase in troops and an expansion of the military effort there, but I think we're past that time," said Julian Zelizer, a political historian at Boston University.
Bush is expected to deliver his speech - laying out his plan to improve security, assist the Iraqis in reaching a political reconciliation between warring sects and help with reconstruction - before his State of the Union address on Jan. 23.
The president, who has been at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, this week, spent a windy, rainy Friday talking about Iraq on the phone with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and took time to ponder discussions he had on Thursday with Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Military historian Frederick Kagan at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, said Bush's speech - whenever it occurs - will overwhelm any event in Iraq.
"We've reached a critical moment. The president is clearly contemplating a strategy that will be very different from what he has been doing," said Kagan, who is advocating a large surge in U.S. forces in Iraq. "That message is going to dominate the discussion. The American people want to know whether we're going to win this war, and they're going to listen very carefully to whatever the president says."
Whether he likes it or not, the president's legacy is hinged to Iraq. Poor progress there helped sweep Democrats into power in both the House and the Senate in November's midterm elections. If the United States continues to be mired in a violent Iraq, the chances for Democrats to capture the White House in 2008 brighten as well.
Bush's approval for handling Iraq was at 27 percent in early December, according to AP-Ipsos polling - his lowest approval rating yet in this area. Seventy-one percent disapproved of how he was managing the war. Moreover, almost two-thirds, or 63 percent, doubt that a stable, democratic government will be established in Iraq. That's up from 54 percent who felt that way in June.
At this juncture, some political analysts think the timing of Bush's Iraqi speech is irrelevant. They say he has just one roll of the dice left on Iraq, and if his strategy does not help stabilize things there, it will be quickly overtaken by events.
After the seemingly thousands of times I've heard or read that Bush "rushed to war" or "failed to plan," it sure seemed curious to me that this al-AP writer would open her analysis with "Whatever the reasons for President Bush's lengthy deliberations." Why the rush now?
Are the twin political purposes of "Letting the grim milestone of 3,000 U.S. deaths in Iraq and the potential backlash from Saddam Hussein's execution pass before the public hears his new ideas" behind the 'delay?'
Is all of this irrelevent since the left isn't kidding around and is going to fight those Democrats for not getting us out of Iraq already?paraclete answered on 01/03/07:You know the man is incapable of making a decision in a crisis, he proved that on 9/11, so why now do you expect him to be decisive? | | Question/Answer | | Choux... asked on 01/02/07 - SADAM'S BOTCHED EXECUTION , A MARTYR IS CREATED I guess we are all familiar with the circumstances of the hanging of Saddam Hussein, and I imagine some here watched it on the tape created by someone holding up his cell phone and photographing it.
All I could think was it should have been Osama bin Laden being executed. Bin Laden and the Saudi terrorists who carried out the 911 attacks!! But, apparently Bush/Cheney and their powerful oil company execs have managed a deal of some sorts giving bin Laden a pass.
Here are the comments of Tom Brokaw on the Imus radio show:
BROKAW: "No, it’s — you know, as we portray ourselves around the world as the champions of democracy and the rule of law — first of all, that began to unravel in the eyes of a lot of people in that part of world with Abu Ghraib and the great cruelties and indignities that were imposed on people there. The debate goes on here about Guantanamo and about access to people’s private records. And then to say that we are going to install in Iraq a judicial system and a democratic form of government and have something that resembled the worst kind of nightmare out of the old American West. Not much dignity. He was, he was a god awful man and he did have a trial, but not have control of the execution, and to have it really just fuel more sectarian violence at a time when we are trying to dampen that is not helpful, which is an understatement.
IMUS: Well, I guess the New York Times reported and I was also talking to Richard about that the United States apparently unsuccessfully prevailed about Maliki to delay this.
BROKAW: Yep.
IMUS: I wonder, I wonder why he refused? I mean…
BROKAW: I honestly don’t know either. But Saddam Hussein who had disappeared, in effect, as some kind of a symbol over there, suddenly becomes a martyr. He was a terrible tyrant who was responsible for an untold number of deaths, you know, waged his own jihad against the Shiite in that country, especially in the south following Operation Desert Storm in the early 1990s, and now he’s able to stand up there with the hood off and invoke prayer and even invoke the Palestinians, and go out in the eyes of his people at least as a martyr.
IMUS: I mean, it’s difficult to imagine how this could have turned out worse.
BROKAW: No, it is pretty difficult to imagine, and it’s, you know, just as the military commanders and the political people who are trying to run the war think that they’ve got something quieted over in one front, it pops up in another."
Today we learn the Bush is removing Gen. Casey blaming him for the failures in prosecuting the War on Iraq...WHICH WE ALL KNOW WAS RUN BY RUMSFELD FROM THE PENTAGON. The feedback from Generals in the field was ignored by Bush and his administration per many news stories over the last year or so.
So now, the Sunnis because of the recorded taunting of Saddam at the gallows, have a martyr to unite behind eternally WITH ALL THEIR HEARTS in their civil war against the majority Shi'a.
Bush has proven himself to be totally incompetent.
IMPEACH NOW paraclete answered on 01/03/07:did I miss something here?
When did Bush become emperor and america rule the world?
Saddam was lawfully executed, if the Iraqi wanted to turn it into a circus, that's their way and their business | | Question/Answer | | Choux... asked on 12/26/06 - WARMER WEATHER CHANGING WASHINGTON DC FOLIAGE WASHINGTON - "Fifteen years of warm winter weather is beginning to change the Washington area's landscape — with Southern species like crape myrtles having an easier time and northern types feeling less welcome, according to findings by the National Arbor Day Foundation.
The foundation has revised its map of "hardiness zones" — with each of the nine zones showing a range of average annual low temperatures that help serve as a guide for gardeners and others.
One big change was that the entire Washington area was reclassified in the same zone as parts of Texas and North Carolina. In 1990, according to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, the region sat on the border of the northern and southern zones.
"You could say D.C. is the new North Carolina," said Bill McLaughlin, a curator at the U.S. Botanic Garden on the Mall."
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Climate Crisis...Issue in 2008 Presidential Election? paraclete answered on 12/26/06:welcome to climate change | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 12/22/06 - CIA exercise reveals consequences of defeat By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published December 21, 2006
The CIA this month conducted a simulation of how the Iraq war affects the global jihadist movement, and one conclusion was that a U.S. loss would embolden al Qaeda to expand its ranks of terrorists as well as pick new strategic targets, according to sources familiar with the two-day exercise.
CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield confirmed to The Washington Times yesterday that the simulation took place in Northern Virginia. He declined to discuss its findings, saying that a final report is not finished and that the report will not be the intelligence community's official view. It will, however, be circulated within the community and possibly to U.S. policy-makers.
The exercise involved 75 CIA analysts and outside specialists. It was conducted by the CIA's Office of Terrorism Analysis, within the agency's Counterterrorism Center.
A source familiar with the simulation said it was a "red team" exercise in which participants played the role of global jihadists and war-gamed how the U.S. involvement in Iraq will influence their terror movement.
Although it takes no policy positions, the simulation's key finding appears to bolster Mr. Bush's contention that a U.S. loss in Iraq will have far-reaching ramifications.
At a press conference yesterday, Mr. Bush said, "A lot of Americans understand the consequences of retreat. Retreat would embolden radicals. It would hurt the credibility of the United States. Retreat from Iraq would dash the hopes of millions who want to be free. Retreat from Iraq would enable the extremists and radicals to more likely be able to have safe haven from which to plot and plan further attacks."
Al Qaeda has made stopping democracy in Iraq a top priority, according to U.S. military officials. It has recruited hundreds of suicide bombers to come to Iraq and inflict mass casualties to spur a Sunni-Shi'ite Muslim civil war. The group wants to wear down U.S. troops to the point where they will retreat. Al Qaeda's ultimate goal is to turn Iraq and other Middle East countries into hard-line Islamic states, U.S. military officials say.
One key finding from the "red team" exercise is that al Qaeda will follow past practices. Jihadists perceived the victory over the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in 1988 as a seminal event that spawned the creation of al Qaeda under the direction of Osama bin Laden. Al Qaeda leaders thought that if jihadists could defeat a global power in one theater, it could bring down governments in other nations.
Six years later, when U.S. troops left Somalia after taking casualties at the hands of al Qaeda-trained Muslim fighters, it reaffirmed its feeling of invincibility and its belief that Western powers have a low threshold for casualties. After Somalia, al Qaeda -- and like-minded jihadists -- began attacking U.S. targets in the Persian Gulf region and ultimately struck America on September 11, 2001.
The CIA-sponsored simulation predicts that al Qaeda will view a U.S. defeat in Iraq as another jihadist victory over a superpower and one that will bring it even more terrorist recruits.
"When we did the simulation, the ramifications were enormous," said the source, who asked not to be named. The source said al Qaeda will proclaim, "God has given us a second victory over a superpower.
"Imagine what defeat in Iraq would do," said the source. "Al Qaeda picks new targets after it thinks it's won."
This person expressed unhappiness that the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, devoted less than a page to what a loss in Iraq would mean for global terrorism.
The source said he hopes the CIA report is circulated within the administration to drive home the point that the stakes are high in Iraq. Mr. Bush is set to announce early next year new strategies and tactics for winning in Iraq. He previously has dismissed proposals from Democrats to pull out all 135,000 U.S. troops now or withdraw them on a set timetable regardless of events on the ground.
Mr. Mansfield said the Counterterrorism Center this year has sponsored 20 internal simulations, seminars and conferences using outside experts to examine issues related to the war on terror.
He added, "We frequently reach out to experts outside of government and solicit their views on a range of matters. It is done routinely, and it is a very important aspect of our work. The simulation consisted of officers from around the intelligence community as well as outside experts."
Such events are held, he said, "to better understand emerging threats to the United States."
Copyright © 2006 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Surely there were fatal flaws in the exercise. Just like the relentlessly negative press, nobody believes a pullout would "embolden the terrorists." Right? paraclete answered on 12/22/06:well surprise, surprise, their scenario confirmed government rhetoric. Has anyone I wonder, run the scenario, where, with no fight to engage in, the terrorists stay home and engage in a little local hostility | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 12/20/06 - Rumors of a changes leadership in the Iraqi theater . According to AP and other news outlets ,General John Abizaid was supposed to retire in July but has continued to function at CENTCOM at the request of Rummy. He is purportedly ready to step down in March . He has vocally opposed increasing troop strength in Iraq. Rumors are that General George Casey currently in Iraq will replace him.
Possible replacements also include :
Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who led the 101st Airborne Division during the 2003 Iraq invasion and later headed the effort to train Iraqi security forces. He most recently oversaw the rewriting of the Army and Marine field manual for counterinsurgencies.
Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who last week finished his tour as the No. 2 general in Iraq, as commander of the multinational forces there.
Lt. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, also a former division commander in Iraq and now head of the Iraq training effort.
I expect that the new commander will come from the ranks of officers who think that additional boots on the ground can make a difference .
paraclete answered on 12/20/06:those are some high ranking dudes there | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 12/19/06 - Quick quiz What nation is this?
7,100,000 cell phone subscribers - up from 1,400,000 only two years ago. This nation's leading cell phone company took in $333,000,000 in 2005, and is on track to take in $520,000,000 in 2006.
34,000 registered companies in the chamber of commerce - up from 8,000 two years ago.
GDP growth in 2005 was 17%, in 2006 13%. (We get jazzed when our GDP is 3-4%.)
$41,000,000,000 in oil revenues in 2006.
Salaries have risen more than 100% since 2003.
Income taxes have been reduced from 45% to 15%.
Real Estate prices have risen several hundred percent in the last two years, indicating a red hot real estate market.
Gasoline is .14 cents a liter.
And this list is just the tip of the iceberg.
paraclete answered on 12/20/06:Iceberg is a giveaway, Norway,
this is what comes of being at peace with your neighbours and minding your own business | | Question/Answer | | Choux... asked on 12/16/06 - YOU GO TO POSTERITY WITH THE REPUTATION YOU HAVE NOT THE REPUTATION YOU WISH YOU HAD.
"The Associated Press noted the departure of Donald Rumsfeld with a curious retrospective, quoting a biographer who suggests that he is a "tragic figure" because of his wasted "talent and promise." But Nixon, who called him a "ruthless little bastard," had Rummy's number from the start. His "talent" was as a political hit man, a vicious insider who would do whatever his bosses wanted.
He was and is a nasty person of shrewd but limited intellect, a bully and a braggart and a bullshit artist. Nobody will miss him.
Do Rumsfeld and his friends regret his public disgrace, which will follow him into the grave? Too bad. They should have thought about that earlier, when he was slandering generals and political opponents alike (for being right), enriching war profiteers, and making one egregious error in judgement after another. No wonder he won praise today from Dick Cheney, a man whose predictions on Iraq have been as accurate as his shooting.
The only thing that could change the way Rumsfeld is remembered is if more is revealed about his complicity in torture and other war crimes.
What should Rumsfeld be remembered for, if not Iraq? For selling contraceptives and sweeteners as a drug executive? No. The GOP wanted this war, and Rumsfeld gave it to them. They wanted lying and deception, and Rummy delivered. They wanted to cut costs when it came to protecting our soldiers, and to jack them up when it came to making Halliburton rich. Again, Rumsfeld came through.
The only form of combat at which Rumsfeld ever excelled was bureaucratic infighting. That, and not expertise or brains, is why Nixon named him to a Cabinet post. "I need a man who will be in there fighting," Nixon said on the White House tapes. "He's a ruthless little bastard ... He's tough enough that if he knows what I want, he isn't going to come in and try to sell me something."
Rumsfeld knew how to get things done - particularly things that advanced Rumsfeld's career. He was appointed to direct the Office of Economic Opportunity so that the GOP could run it into the ground, but he proved an aggressive and adept advocate for some of its programs. That wasn't out of idealism, but rather as a way to expand his own turf.
As Secretary of Defense, he increased the military budget during a period of détente and reduced military need. Why? Because - again - he wanted more power.
His first private-sector job, as CEO of G. D. Searle, was well-suited to his talents. He cut underperforming divisions, per the corporate trends of the day. (Some business analysts believe this tactic, while good for short-term stock values, actually guts the long term worth of some companies while making employees suffer needlessly.)
His political skills came in especially handy at Searle's helm, since he was able to persuade the Reagan Administration to reverse government policy and permit the use of Searle's formerly-banned product, Aspartame.
(Rumsfeld continues to profit from the decisions of his political pals. During the bird-flu scare Bush allocated a billion dollars to purchase Tamiflu, which another Rumsfeld company developed. The result was a few more million dollars in value for Rummy's portfolio.)
But Iraq will remain the capstone of Rumsfeld's career. He treated the lives and welfare of our soldiers as cavalierly as he did the jobs of employees at those Searle divisions he closed down. His limitations, both intellectual and moral, made him the Republican Party's perfect instrument for the pursuit of this war. He was the creature of the Party that created and nurtured him, and an accurate reflection of it.
His most famous quote was not only flippant but dishonest, since it was used to conceal his own managerial incompetence, lack of proper planning, and indifference to the human cost of his actions. Let's not forget the question that prompted it, either, from a soldier serving in Iraq:
Army Spc. Thomas Wilson: Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles? And why don't we have those resources readily available to us?
Rumsfeld: It isn't a matter of money. It isn't a matter on the part of the army of desire. It's a matter of production and capability of doing it. As you know, ah, you go to war with the army you have--not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.--You can have all the armor in the world on a tank and it can (still) be blown up...
Rumsfeld's press conferences were widely noted for his bullying, confusing, and often incoherent comments. What was less obvious to most press observers was that his elliptically-phrased aggression was an intentional strategy. He kept reporters confused, intidimated, and off-balance while showering the public with his muddled thinking, cynical manipulations, and flat-out lies.
The content of the AP piece is generally fair and balanced, although they turned to a Cato Institute scholar rather than one of his many progressive detractors for the observation that he will be remembered with a "dark epitaph."
But the AP's lamentation for the fact that his career "ended in ignominy" is a curious one. He will be remembered, if at all, for these qualities: callousness, libelous comments about those who disagreed with him, a hallucinogenic detachment from reality, smug refusal to consider other people's opinions, mental shallowness, and a sociopathic inability to take responsibility for his own actions.
Most of all, he will be remembered for that most destructive and personally unappealing combination of personality traits: arrogance and incompetence.
Given that record, what could be a more appropriate end to his career than "ignominy"? RK Eskrow, Blogger
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ paraclete answered on 12/19/06:where is posterity and how do you go there? | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 12/15/06 - The Holocaust Conference Shames Iran The Holocaust Conference Shames Iran
by Amil Imani a free Iranian commentator living in the U.S.
Thursday, 14 December 2006
We have been telling the world that the present clique of Islamofascists ruling Iran is not Iranian in the world-view. And with each passing day fresh evidence supports our claim. The recent gathering of some of the world’s fascists in Tehran, at the invitation of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Islamofascist President Ahmadinejad, provides further support to our claim.
Iranians have never had any animosity toward the Jewish people. In fact, our friendship with the Jews goes back thousands of years. You have to be a fascist to pick, with no justification at all, on any people to persecute and aim to annihilate. True Iranians are among the world’s staunchest supporters of universal human rights.
The circus in Tehran, billed as “a conference”, was nothing more than a disgusting attempt by the savage inheritors of Muhammad’s dogma of hate to continue in his tradition of wanton attacks on all unbelievers, particularly the Jews. It is said that you can tell a great deal about people by the company they keep. And who was given a front seat at this “conference?” It was, arguably, one of the world’s greatest racist scums, former KKK Imperial Wizard David Duke.
In order to show his hateful fiber and simultaneously ingratiate himself to his newly discovered Petrodollar rich co- fascists, the fool Wizard told the 70 or so participants, “The Zionists have used the Holocaust as a weapon to deny the rights of the Palestinians and cover up the crimes of Israel", music to the ears of the hate-driven mullahs and fascists of the world.
Then, the Wizard told the Associated Press, “The Holocaust is the device used as the pillar of Zionist imperialism, Zionist aggression, Zionist terror and Zionist murder”.
You are excused if you dismiss the “conference” as an inconsequential forum, since any event that would have David Duke as its star attraction is bound to be nothing more than an instance of psychopathic bigotry. However, rest assured that this is not the case. The shameless Wizard and his handler, the equally disgusting fascist, have other “luminaries” working with them side-by-side to demonstrate conclusively that the Holocaust is a myth and the Jews will have to re-experience it to make it real to the delight of these children of Hitler.
The impish Ahmadinejad, a man called “monkey” by Iranians, opened Tuesday's session by thanking God that the Zionist regime was about to expire soon and declaring “its lifetime will be over and their interests as well as reputation will be endangered”.
Parroting the line of the “monkey”, Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour, a former interior minister and one of the founders of the Lebanese Hezbollah, told the gathering, "All the studies and research carried out so far have proven that there is no reason to believe that the Holocaust ever occurred and that it is only a tale”.
A card-carrying psychopath, Austrian Wolfgang Froehlich, who served a two-year jail sentence in his home country for denying the Holocaust, handed out the text of his speech to participants. Apparently he did not relish another trip to jail, since denying the Holocaust is a crime in a number of European countries, while it can earn one valued privileges in some Islamic lands.
A crowning comment was that of Nabil Soleiman, an adviser to the ministry of religious affairs in Syria. "If the Holocaust ever occurred, it was a conspiracy against the Arab-Islamic world and today the Middle East is still paying the consequences", he said at the event.
Mohammad Ali Ramini, an Ahmadinejad adviser, announced that he will chair a committee to find "the truth on the genocide of Jews", at the end of the gathering. And here the rest of us had thought that these bigots had already the truth about the myth of the Holocaust in hand. They have been saying so, even before this landmark “scholarly” gathering took place. Why bother with another “high” commission to prove the proven? Well, it’s one of those fascists’ ways.
Serving on the committee with Ramini was Robert Fuerisson, a French professor who denies the existence of gas chambers, as well as Holocaust deniers from Syria, Switzerland, Austria, Canada, the United States and Bahrain.
Now, how could anyone express any reservation, much less disgust about the impartial work of such a “distinguished” international group of “scholars”, sponsored by, no less than the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran?
We, Iranians, denounce this circus of hate and fraud that sullies the reputation of our nation. We hold the betrayers of our heritage of friendship and respect for all people accountable for their crimes against us and all humans who are affronted by the shameless actions of the propagators of hate.
We, free Iranians, express our deepest sympathy to the Jewish people for what they have suffered at the hands of the Nazis; and we condemn, in the strongest terms, the new coalition of fascists who are gathering under the disgusting and dangerous banner of Islamofascism.
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Check out the Wolf Blitzer smack down of David Duke on CNN . From the start he identifies Duke for the jerk that he is by mentioning his affiliation with the KKK 11 times in the intro. and by tying Dukes Jew hatinmg positions with those of the like minded Mahdi-hatter Ahamadjihad.
The thing that was interesting to me is that if you strip away the blatant anti-semitism from his rhetoric and mask it with the neo-isolationist lingo that Dennis Kucinich or Pat Buchannan frequently uses ;or the rhetoric that has come out of Jimmy Carter recently ,there really is not much difference .
Consider the following from Carter's recent editorial :
The many controversial issues concerning Palestine and the path to peace for Israel are intensely debated among Israelis and throughout other nations — but not in the United States. For the last 30 years, I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints on any free and balanced discussion of the facts. This reluctance to criticize policies of the Israeli government is due to the extraordinary lobbying efforts of the American-Israel Political Action Committee and the absence of any significant contrary voices....
It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine, to suggest that Israel comply with international law or to speak in defense of justice or human rights for Palestinians....
What is even more difficult to comprehend is why the editorial pages of the major newspapers and magazines in the United States exercise similar self-restraint, quite contrary to private assessments expressed forcefully by their correspondents in the Holy Land....
Book reviews in the mainstream media have been written mostly by representatives of Jewish organizations who would be unlikely to visit the occupied territories, and their primary criticism is that the book is anti-Israel. Two members of Congress have been publicly critical. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for instance, issued a statement (before the book was published) saying that "he does not speak for the Democratic Party on Israel." Some reviews posted on Amazon.com call me "anti-Semitic," and others accuse the book of "lies" and "distortions." A former Carter Center fellow has taken issue with it, and Alan Dershowitz called the book's title "indecent."
Out in the real world, however, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I've signed books in five stores, with more than 1,000 buyers at each site. I've had one negative remark — that I should be tried for treason — and one caller on C-SPAN said that I was an anti-Semite. My most troubling experience has been the rejection of my offers to speak, for free, about the book on university campuses with high Jewish enrollment and to answer questions from students and professors....
The book describes the abominable oppression and persecution in the occupied Palestinian territories...
An enormous imprisonment wall is now under construction, snaking through what is left of Palestine, to encompass more and more land for Israeli settlers. In many ways, this is more oppressive than what blacks lived under in South Africa during apartheid....
The supposition that Israel withdrawing from the territories will create peace is naive. If only that were true. How many times do we have to hear statements from elected Hamas members that there will be no peace at all with Israel at all before people like Mr. Carter believes them? Israel withdrew completely from Gaza and instead of working towards statehood, the Palestinians immediately starting firing rockets into pre-1967 Israeli territory. Mr. Carter’s different version of reality is what makes him so dangerous.
It is really lame that Carter ,a former President would stoop so low as to use the tiresome cannard that the biggots use about Israel ; that AIPAC ,and Jewish control of the media ,universities and Congress ;controls US foreign policy and public discourse . It is insulting to the general population and indeed anti-semetic .
People like Carter, Buchannan ,and Kucinich provide a rhetorical and ideological cover for the Mahdi-hatter to hold his bizzare symposium to voice blind anti-semitism. One can imagine that Jimmy Carter would've been very comfortable sitting in Tehran this week.
paraclete answered on 12/15/06:What on Earth does the Holocaust have to do with the Arabs, aside from the possibility that some like the Mufti of Jerusalem might have stood on the sidelines cheering?
The move to re-establish the Jewish homeland started long before Hitler attempted to exterminate Europe's Jews.
But there is something else in the European character that Islamics should take warning from. The Europeans expelled the Jews on more than one occasion, and didn't take kindly to Islamic invaders and with large Islamic populations, the Europeans may feel these interlopers should be removed also | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 12/12/06 - Incoming House Intelligence Chief Botches Easy Intel Quiz WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas, who incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tapped to head the Intelligence Committee when the Democrats take over in January, failed a quiz of basic questions about al Qaeda and Hezbollah, two of the key terrorist organizations the intelligence community has focused on since the September 11, 2001 attacks.
When asked by CQ National Security Editor Jeff Stein whether al Qaeda is one or the other of the two major branches of Islam -- Sunni or Shiite -- Reyes answered "they are probably both," then ventured "Predominantly -- probably Shiite.
"That is wrong. Al Qaeda was founded by Osama bin Laden as a Sunni organization and views Shiites as heretics.
Reyes could also not answer questions put by Stein about Hezbollah, a Shiite group on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations that is based in Southern Lebanon.
In an interview with CNN, Stein said he was "amazed" by Reyes' lack of what he considers basic information about two of the major terrorists organizations.
"If you're the baseball commissioner and you don't know the difference between the Yankees and the Red Sox, you don't know baseball," Stein said. "You're not going to have the respect of the people you work with."
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I wonder if he even knows if they're Muslims ????
The interview went like this :
Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?
“Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately?”
“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured.
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.
That’s because the extremist Sunnis who make up a l Qaeda consider all Shiites to be heretics.
Al Qaeda’s Sunni roots account for its very existence. Osama bin Laden and his followers believe the Saudi Royal family besmirched the true faith through their corruption and alliance with the United States, particularly allowing U.S. troops on Saudi soil.
It’s been five years since these Muslim extremists flew hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center.
Is it too much to ask that our intelligence overseers know who they are?
Civil War
And Hezbollah? I asked him. What are they?
“Hezbollah. Uh, Hezbollah...”
He laughed again, shifting in his seat.
“Why do you ask me these questions at five o’clock? Can I answer in Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?”
“Pocito,” I said—a little.
“Pocito?! “ He laughed again.
“Go ahead,” I said, talk to me about Sunnis and Shia in Spanish.
Reyes: “Well, I, uh....”
I apologized for putting him “on the spot a little.” But I reminded him that the people who have killed thousands of Americans on U.S. soil and in the Middle East have been front page news for a long time now.
It’s been 23 years since a Hezbollah suicide bomber killed over 200 U.S. military personnel in Beirut, mostly Marines.
Hezbollah, a creature of Iran, is close to taking over in Lebanon. Reports say they are helping train Iraqi Shiites to kill Sunnis in the spiralling civil war.
“Yeah,” Reyes said, rightly observing, “but . . . it’s not like the Hatfields and the McCoys. It’s a heck of a lot more complex.
“And I agree with you — we ought to expend some effort into understanding them. But speaking only for myself, it’s hard to keep things in perspective and in the categories.”
So let me get this straight . Nancy Pelosi gets into a cat fight with the mildly non-partisan moderate Jane Harman ,who knows more about intel then any other demoncrat in the house and spitefully dismisses her from being Chairman . Now we get Silvestre Reyes who laughingly does not know the difference between Sunni and Shiite.Maybe after he gets out of terrorism 101 he can advance to 102 where he will learn about Jemaah Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf .
Pelosi is looking more incompetent all the time.Next up on her docket ;William Jefferson to run the House Ethics Panel.
The next dem. I want to pass this quiz is the traitorous Jay Rockefeller who will now be handed the Senate Intelligence Committee next month .
paraclete answered on 12/12/06:he is just typical of the ignorance of the administration he will serve | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 12/12/06 - DISGUSTING QUESTION:
I heard on the news this a.m. that 60 Iraqi laborers were killed and 220 were injured by a suicide bomber. That did it for me! Tell me this:
Before we went into Iraq, did anyone conduct an in depth study re: the mentality and religion of the Muslims? I'll have some comments after you answer this question! I'm damn mad!
HANK
paraclete answered on 12/12/06:Where have you been for the past three years? This sort of thing is a daily event. You endorsed Bush and this is what you endorsed, the breakup of Iraq because of the irrational ideas of the invasion of Iraq promulgated by a President who thinks he's on a mission from God.
Any study they might have done was ignored. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 12/11/06 - Will they ever get it right? Seems I've heard this before...
Agriculture is major factor in causing global warming
A recent report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Livestock's Long Shadow - Environmental Issues and Options, warns of the dire environmental consequences of the world's growing meat and dairy production.
According to the report, animal agriculture uses 30% of the Earth's land surface for pasture and feed crop production. It is the driving force in worldwide deforestation and wildlife habitat destruction, with 70% of the irreplaceable Amazon rain forest turned into pasture.
Eventually, pastures are degraded into desert through overgrazing, compaction and erosion. Animal agriculture contributes more pollution to our waterways than all other human activities combined.
Principal sources are animal wastes, as well as soil particles, minerals, organic debris, fertilizers, and pesticides from feed cropland. Most of the world's water supplies are used for irrigating animal feed crops.
Animal agriculture is also a key source of manmade greenhouse gases responsible for global warming.
Sixty-five percent of nitrous oxide, the most damaging of these, is emitted by animal waste, according to the FAO report, and 37% of methane comes from cattle's digestive process. Operation of farm machinery and transport trucks account for 9% of carbon-dioxide emissions.
We don't have to wait for Earth Day to help save our planet. We can start with the next trip to the grocery store.
Ok, before I get to the problem I have to question this:
Animal agriculture is also a key source of manmade greenhouse gases responsible for global warming.
So cow patties are now manmade?
Well, the solutions are obvious, and when I say "we" I mean Americans.
First we must enact an immediate ban on bovine intercourse and eat more beef to drive down the supply.
Second, once the beef supply has dwindled to a trickle all dairy products will be moved to the controlled substance list. Any remaining nonessential cows will be sent to predominantly Hindu countries.
Third, we must all then take a vow of poverty as the growth in meat and dairy product consumption is due to “increased prosperity”.
Fourth, rodeos will be restricted to using mechanical bulls and stick horses.
Fifth, the World Cow Chip Throwing Contest will switch from using cow chips to more environmentally friendly tofu patties.
Sixth, an extensive cow chip harvesting campaign will be enacted with cow chip collection centers being set up all across the nation. The collected cow chips will then be used as fuel for the UN building. The benefit of using them here is obvious - there is a ready supply of BS once the cow chip inventory is exhausted.
Oh, and this Texas ranch must be an example of how "pastures are degraded into desert."
![]() paraclete answered on 12/11/06:Okay, How do you suggest we start? Are you suggesting we don't eat? that's just plain stupid. What do you think would happen if you converted to vegetable consumption? you would become the methane producers. You think there is a lot of hot air in Washington now, the air would be positively unbreathable. Fuel consumption would increase in both the production and distribution of foodstuffs, causing greater carbon dioxide production. Now the answer is a little simplier, cut your beef and dairy consumption in half without increasing your vegetable consumption. We would then see the leaner, meaner you. | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 12/09/06 - WHO ARE THE HUMBUGS: Writing for WIRED NEWS: David Hambling: 02:00 AM Dec, 05, 2006
"The crowd is getting ugly. Soldiers roll up in a Hummer. Suddenly, the whole right half of your body is screaming in agony. You feel like you've been dipped in molten lava. You almost faint from shock and pain, but instead you stumble backwards -- and then start running. To your surprise, everyone else is running too. In a few seconds, the street is completely empty.
You've just been hit with a new nonlethal weapon that has been certified for use in Iraq -- even though critics argue there may be unforeseen effects.
According to documents obtained for Wired News under federal sunshine laws, the Air Force's Active Denial System, or ADS, has been certified safe after lengthy tests by military scientists in the lab and in war games.
The ADS shoots a beam of millimeters waves, which are longer in wavelength than x-rays but shorter than microwaves -- 94 GHz (= 3 mm wavelength) compared to 2.45 GHz (= 12 cm wavelength) in a standard microwave oven.
The longer waves are thought to limit the effects of the radiation. If used properly, ADS will produce no lasting adverse affects, the military argues.
Documents acquired for Wired News using the Freedom of Information Act claim that most of the radiation (83 percent) is instantly absorbed by the top layer of the skin, heating it rapidly.
The beam produces what experimenters call the "Goodbye effect," or "prompt and highly motivated escape behavior." In human tests, most subjects reached their pain threshold within 3 seconds, and none of the subjects could endure more than 5 seconds.
"It will repel you," one test subject said. "If hit by the beam, you will move out of it -- reflexively and quickly. You for sure will not be eager to experience it again."
But while subjects may feel like they have sustained serious burns, the documents claim effects are not long-lasting. At most, "some volunteers who tolerate the heat may experience prolonged redness or even small blisters," the Air Force experiments concluded.
The reports describe an elaborate series of investigations involving human subjects.
The volunteers were military personnel: active, reserve or retired, who volunteered for the tests. They were unpaid, but the subjects would "benefit from direct knowledge that an effective nonlethal weapon system could soon be in the inventory," said one report. The tests ranged from simple exposure in the laboratory to elaborate war games involving hundreds of participants.
The military simulated crowd control situations, rescuing helicopter crews in a Black Hawk Down setting and urban assaults. More unusual tests involved alcohol, attack dogs and maze-like obstacle courses.
In more than 10,000 exposures, there were six cases of blistering and one instance of second-degree burns in a laboratory accident, the documents claim.
The ADS was developed in complete secrecy for 10 years at a cost of $40 million. Its existence was revealed in 2001 by news reports, but most details of ADS human testing remain classified. There has been no independent checking of the military's claims.
The ADS technology is ready to deploy, and the Army requested ADS-armed Strykers for Iraq last year. But the military is well aware that any adverse publicity could finish the program, and it does not want to risk distressed victims wailing about evil new weapons on CNN.
This may mean yet more rounds of testing for the ADS."
Could this weapon end the war in Iraq? Who are THE persons saying "NO" to this strategy NOW?
HANK
paraclete answered on 12/10/06:Hank you are determined to get a rise out of this article, let's hope they replace tasers | | Question/Answer | | Choux... asked on 12/06/06 - Report of Iraq Study Group "The Iraq Study Group called the situation in Iraq "grave and deteriorating" Wednesday and recommended a radically different approach from President Bush's current policy, including the withdrawal of most U.S. combat troops by early 2008.
In delivering its report to Bush and Congress, the bipartisan panel listed 79 recommendations for change in Iraq strategy, including direct talks with Iran and Syria as part of a "diplomatic offensive."
All 10 members of the panel, chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican, and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, met with Bush at the White House to present the bound report. (View the complete report -- PDF)
The Bush administration has repeatedly rejected calls to seek help from Iran and Syria.
But the report states that "Iraq's neighbors and key states in and outside the region should form a support group" to help Iraq achieve long-term security and political reconciliation -- "neither of which it can sustain on its own."
"If we don't talk to them, we don't see much progress being made," Hamilton said. "You can't look at this part of the world and pick and choose which countries you're going to deal with."
The panel, which was chartered by Congress, warns of dire consequences, both at home and abroad, if the U.S. fails to take action.
"If the situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences could be severe. A slide toward chaos could trigger the collapse of Iraq's government and a humanitarian catastrophe," the report says.
"Neighboring countries could intervene. Sunni-Shia clashes could spread. Al Qaeda could win a propaganda victory and expand its base of operations. The global standing of the United States could be diminished. Americans could become more polarized."
On the military front, the report suggests, "By the first quarter of 2008, subject to unexpected developments in the security situation on the ground, all combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq."
It adds: "At that time, U.S. combat forces in Iraq could be deployed only in units embedded with Iraqi forces, in rapid-reaction and special operations teams and in training, equipping, advising, force protection and search and rescue."
The co-chairs said they took "a pragmatic approach" to determining the best course for Iraq and determined the solution was not a military, political or economic one, but rather a combination of the three.
"We no longer can afford to stay the course," Baker said. "If we do what we recommend in this report, it will certainly improve our chances for success."
Hamilton echoed his colleague's sentiments, saying the Iraqi people are "suffering great hardship" and their lives must be improved....."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ paraclete answered on 12/07/06:Sounds like a strategy | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 12/06/06 - Cowboys and Indians:
Why don't our soldiers in Iraq take a lesson from the Indians who roamed the plains during the old Wild West days? They surrounded wagon trains. No escape was possible. Why don't our soldiers use the same stategy in Iraq. Surround Baghdad, synchronize their watches and then start moving towards the center of that hell hole? The old squeeze play. Our planes and choppers could protect their 'backs' and take care of any trouble that may arise north, south, east and west. Since Bush is sending 30,000 more troops to the area, I think this strategy might work.
HANK
paraclete answered on 12/07/06:DON'T YOU REMEMBER, HANK THEY DID THAT AT FALLIJUA but guess what? they were called off when it became too costly for the insurgents. the Iraqi don't want americans murdering their citizens, Hank, but they are fine with Iraqi murdering americans and other Iraqi. There is only one strategy that will work, get out and leave them to it, they will soon sort it out. | | Question/Answer | | Choux... asked on 12/06/06 - RIGHT WING SUPREME COURT IN ACTION "The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected, in an 8-to-1 ruling, the Bush administration's aggressive use of immigration laws to automatically expel legal immigrants for minor drug crimes, a decision that could spare thousands from being deported. Since 1996, more than 12 million legal immigrants have been subject to mandatory deportation if they are found guilty of drug trafficking; four years ago, the government expanded the reach of this law to include simple drug possession, which ordinarily carries only a one-year sentence."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ paraclete answered on 12/06/06:sounds like a bad decision but then if you don't respect the laws of the country why shouldn't you be kicked out. How do you truly tell the difference between drug possession and drug trafficing, it's a matter of degree, but a smart trafficer would keep only a small quantity to avaoid the higher penelty. Guilt by association can sometimes find the guilty. | | Question/Answer | | Choux... asked on 12/01/06 - PEACEFUL COUP UNDERWAY IN BAGHDAD Tom Hayden in a special to the Huffington Post::
"A peaceful coup is being attempted in Baghdad, seeking to replace Nouri al-Maliki with a coalition between the Sunni political leader Saleh al-Mutlak and the Shiite insurgent leader Moqtada al-Sadr.
In the background are calls from Iraq's leading Shiite and Sunni clerics for an American withdrawal timetable.
Al-Mutlak, an ex-Baathist who heads the Iraqi Front for National Dialogue has eleven seats in parliament which, combined with Sadr's twenty percent bloc, is enough to destabilize or even bring down the regime of al-Maliki.
As reported last week in the Huntington Post, secret efforts to strike a deal with the Sunni nationalist resistance have been underway for months. Ex-Baathists like Mutlak, Sunnis in the Muslim Scholars Association, and in particular the revered Sunni cleric Harith al-Dhari, are strongly supportive of a political settlement based on a US withdrawal timetable. But the sudden move by al-Sadr's Shiite bloc, which pulled out of the Baghdad government over al-Maliki's meeting with Bush, provides the anti-occupation coalition with significant, perhaps decisive, power, if they choose to bring down al-Maliki's shaky coalition.
US commanders make no secret of their desire to crush al-Sadr's Mahdi Army - indeed they are waging a war of attrition - but they will be frustrated if the new coalition takes hold. Mainstream media has reported that the US has hoped to cajole the Sunnis to align with al-Maliki against al-Sadr, a scenario that seemingly is being rejected and reversed. Instead, al-Sadr's bloc is demanding a US timeline for withdrawal.
CNN' Nick Robertson featured an interview today [Thursday morning] with al-Mutlak in Baghdad, describing the unfolding transition plan as having been months in the making. It appeared that a threatened al-Maliki would have to join the call for US withdrawal, or face the possibility of being replaced by an interim government. Wolf Blitzer described the al-Maliki government as "teetering." [Earlier this year, 104 Iraqi parliamentarians, over forty percent of its membership, signed a resolution calling for an American withdrawal timetable; it was tabled under American pressure.]
Any of these scenarios would seem intolerable to the Bush Administration. But how would it respond to a demand from a reconstituted Baghdad government for a withdrawal timetable? Send more American troops into Sadr City? Facing a request from Baghdad for withdrawal, American domestic demand for a pullout could become overwhelming, even for Bush.
This week's immediate outcome cannot be predicted, depending as it does on al-Maliki's response, the US embassy's role, and above all, the determination of al-Sadr to forge a coalition with al-Mutlak across the sectarian divides.
However, al-Sadr is a well-known Arab Shiite often at odds with more pro-Irani Shiite parties like that Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim, and has been a critic of the "political quietism" of the elderly Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. His base is the Shiite urban underclass, centered in Sadr City slum. His forces fought in collaboration with the Sunnis during the American siege of Falluja in 2004, and rose against the American forces on two other occasions in 2003 and 2004. They have sent 100,000 people into the streets demanding US withdrawal, and on one occasion collected one million signatures door to door on a withdrawal petition. [for more information, see Ahmed Hashim's Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq, Cornell, 2006]
IF INTERESTED, READ ENTIRE ARTICLE AT HUFFINGTONPOST DOT COM. IT IS LONG.
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I wonder how the fluid, violent situation in Iraq will effect Bush's foreign policy in the next few months?
Will soldiers want to go there under the increase of force proposed by Bush and McCain? paraclete answered on 12/01/06:In your dreams | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 11/30/06 - What the current state of tort law has brought us. Or is it the current state of stupidity of the American people that is causing this? I'm betting its a combination of both.
Consumer Labels
The following are REAL warning labels on real products, that were put there by companies afraid of being sued frivolously by complete morons.
1. On Sears hairdryer:
"Do not use while sleeping."
(But..., that's the only time I have to work on my hair)
2. On a bar of Dial soap:
"Directions: Use like regular soap."
(And that would be how. . . ?)
3. On some Swanson frozen dinners:
"Serving suggestions: Defrost."
(But it's "just" a suggestion)
4. On Tesco's Tiramisu dessert (printed on bottom of box):
"Do not turn upside down."
(Oops, too late!)
5. On Marks & Spencer Bread Pudding:
"Product will be hot after heating."
(Hmm . . . .)
6. On packaging for a Rowenta iron:
"Do not iron clothes on body."
(But wouldn't this save even more time?)
7. On Boot's Children's Cough Medicine:
"Do not drive a car or operate machinery after taking this medication."
(We could do a lot to reduce the rate of construction accidents if we could just get those 5-year-olds with head colds off those forklifts.)
8. On Nytol Sleep Aid:
"Warning: May cause drowsiness."
(One would hope)
9. On most brands of Christmas lights:
"For indoor or outdoor use only."
(As opposed to underwater?)
10. On a Japanese food processor:
"Not to be used for the other use."
(I gotta admit, I'm curious.)
11. On Sainsbury's peanuts:
"Warning: Contains nuts."
(NEWS FLASH)
12. On a child's Superman costume:
"Wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly."
(I don't blame the company, I blame parents for this one.)
13. On a Swedish chain saw:
"Do not attempt to stop chain with your hands."
(Was there a chance of this happening somewhere? . . .)
14. On a bottle of Palmolive Dishwashing liquid:
"Do not use on food."
(Hey, Mom, we're out of syrup! It's OK, honey, just grab the Palmolive!)
I long ago came to the conclusion that "common sense" isn't all that common. This just proves it one more time.
Elliot paraclete answered on 12/01/06:Really you should try these
On a blanket from Taiwan -
NOT TO BE USED AS PROTECTION FROM A TORNADO.
On a helmet mounted mirror used by US cyclists -
REMEMBER, OBJECTS IN THE MIRROR ARE ACTUALLY BEHIND YOU.
(Mirror -vs- Glass: people don't know the difference???)
On a Taiwanese shampoo -
USE REPEATEDLY FOR SEVERE DAMAGE.
(brain damage?)
On a New Zealand insect spray -
THIS PRODUCT NOT TESTED ON ANIMALS.
(Then what? Tested on humans???)
In a US guide to setting up a new computer -
TO AVOID CONDENSATION FORMING, ALLOW THE BOXES TO WARM UP TO ROOM TEMPERATURE BEFORE OPENING.
(Sensible, but the instruction was INSIDE the box.)
In some countries, on the bottom of Coke bottles -
OPEN OTHER END.
(The company knows what kind of people they are dealing with)
On Marks & Spencer Bread Pudding -
PRODUCT WILL BE HOT AFTER HEATING.
(Isn't it obvious!?!)
On a Korean kitchen knife -
WARNING KEEP OUT OF CHILDREN.
(Very helpful...for murderers!)
| | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 11/30/06 - That darn global warming Hurricane season ends quietly
By JESSICA GRESKO Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press
MIAMI — The mild 2006 Atlantic hurricane season draws to a close Thursday without a single hurricane striking the United States - a stark contrast to the record-breaking 2005 season that killed more than 1,500 people and left thousands homeless along the Gulf Coast.
Nine named storms and five hurricanes formed this season, and just two of the hurricanes were considered major. That is considered a near-normal season and well short of the rough season government scientists had forecast.
"We got a much-welcome break after a lot of the coast had been compromised in the last several years, but this is a one-season type break," said Gerry Bell, lead seasonal hurricane forecaster for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
In May, scientists predicted 13 to 16 named storms and eight to 10 hurricanes, with four to six of them major.
The 2005 hurricane season was the busiest on record, with 28 named storms, including 15 hurricanes, four of which hit the United States, including Katrina and Rita.
Bell urged people not to become complacent about the next season, which starts June 1. Forecasters say the Atlantic is still in an active hurricane period that began in 1995 and could last another decade or more.
This year, a warm-water trend known as El Nino developed more quickly than expected in the Pacific, squashing the formation of storms in the Atlantic and creating crosswinds that can rip hurricanes apart. At the same time, upper-level air currents pushed most hurricanes out to sea, away from the U.S. mainland.
Only two storms, Tropical Storms Alberto and Ernesto, hit the U.S. mainland in 2006. Neither caused significant damage.
The season effectively ended with Hurricane Isaac, the last named storm, which dissipated Oct. 2.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was just April when experts predicted 2006 will have about nine hurricanes (average is 5.9); 17 named storms (average is 9.6), 85 named storm days (average is 49.1); 45 hurricane days (average is 24.5); 5 intense (Category 3-4-5) hurricanes (average is 2.3) and 13 intense hurricane days (average is 5.0).
The probability of U.S. major hurricane landfall is estimated to be about 55 percent above average.
I guess they missed that one. Btw, here in Amarillo, TX we have 7 inches of snow on the ground, it's about 18 degrees, the wind chill last night was 15 below zero. it was predicted we would receive a 'light dusting.'
With all those incorrect predictions, especially the 'sky is falling' predictions on the 2006 hurricane season, what makes any of these global warming 'experts' think they can predict this alleged threat? paraclete answered on 11/30/06:Some people are never satisfied, lurching from one disaster to another, however it is good to know you have thus far been spared. Climate change has this strange aspect about it, the climate changes unexpectedly, you see what you are experiencing is the result of all those fractions which, of course, have to happen sometime and they have happened in 2006. There's your explanation. .9 hurricanes, .1 storm days, .5 hurricane days
.3 category 3-4-5, and .0 intense hurricane days.
It's in properly anaylsing the statistics.
I'm open to offers | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 11/30/06 - Now THIS is the way to do business! With the "other" now in total power, this will be the way to go, as it will be as easy as buttering bread!
TO: Honorable Secretary of Agriculture
Washington, D.C
Dear Sir,
I have been evacuated from New Orleans because the flood took my old trailer and beat up car. I thought I might go into business to supplement my welfare check.
My friend over at Wells, Iowa received a check for $1,000 from the Government for not raising hogs. Right now I'm getting extra help from the government and Red Cross while I'm displaced but when that stops I want to go into the "not-raising-hogs" business.
What I want to know is, in your opinion, what is the best kind of farm not to raise hogs on, and what is the best breed of hogs not to raise? I want to be sure tha t I approach this endeavor in keeping with all governmental policies. I would prefer not to raise razorbacks, but if that is not a good breed not to raise, then I will just as gladly not raise Yorkshires or Durocs.
As I see it, the hardest part of this program will be in keeping an accurate inventory of how many hogs I haven't raised.
My friend, Peterson, is very joyful about the future of the business. He has been raising hogs for twenty years or so, and the best he ever made on them was $422 in 1968, until this year when he got your check for $1000 for not raising hogs. If I get $1000 for not raising 50 hogs, will I get $2000 for not raising 100 hogs? I plan to operate on a small scale at first, holding
myself down to about 4000 hogs not raised, which will mean about $80,000 the first year. Then I can afford an airplane.
Now another thing, these hogs I will not raise will not eat 100,000 bushels of corn. I understand that you also pay farmers for not raising corn and wheat. Will I qualify for payments for not raising wheat and corn not to feed the 4000 hogs I am not going to raise?
Also, I am considering the "not milking cows" business, so send me any information you have on that too. In view of these circumstances, you understand that I will be totally unemployed and plan to file for unemployment and food
stamps.
Be assured you will have my vote in the coming election.
Patriotically Yours,
Ima Taker
paraclete answered on 11/30/06:It's very hard to work this all out, not to be out done by the US in agricultural policy the Australian government has launched a number of plans to create non agricultural sector, we have the dairy industry reconstruction plan, the pig meat industry reconstruction plan, the poultry industry reconstruction plan, the marginal lands assistance plan, the wool industry reconstruction plan, the wool stockpile plan, the riparian rights buyback plan
Like your friend from Louisiania we have many farmers and would be farmers being assisted to relocate to more profitable industries.
We find the best way to accomplish this is to accure the riparian rights by regulation allowing the flows released to nourish the wetlands and wildfowl.
Once it can be demonstrated that the property is no longer agriculturally viable,
the farmer is assisted to leave the property with welfare payments and cash subsidies whilst the property is then handed back to the local aboriginal lands council were it can be used to put aboriginal peoples to usefull employment raising kangaroos. This plan is an unqualifed success, the kangaroo population has quadrupled, the aboriginal populations have migrated from the cities to take up these opportunities and the farmers have taken up residence in the cities swelling the ranks of the unemployed and keeping the staff of Centrelink fully occupied advising the farmers on how to obtain employment for the first time in their lives. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 11/29/06 - Supreme Court takes up global warming for first time WASHINGTON - "Frustrated by Bush administration inaction on global warming, states and environmentalists urged the Supreme Court Wednesday to declare greenhouse gases to be air pollutants that the government must regulate.
The court’s first case on the politically charged topic showed an apparent split between its liberal and conservative justices, with Anthony Kennedy potentially the decisive vote in determining whether the administration must abandon its refusal to treat carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as air pollutants that imperil public health.
Justice Samuel Alito, who with Chief Justice John Roberts seemed most skeptical of the states’ position, said that even in the best of circumstances, the reduction in greenhouse gases would be relatively small.
Justice David Souter indicated that every little bit would help. “They don’t have to show that it will stop global warming. Their point is that will reduce the degree of global warming and likely reduce the degree of loss,” he said.
The case involves whether the Environmental Protection Agency must regulate emissions of greenhouse gases from new vehicles under a provision of the Clean Air Act. When a decision comes sometime before July, it could have a significant ripple effect that could extend to power plants as well as states’ efforts to impose more stringent regulations on car tailpipe emissions.
Many scientists believe that greenhouse gases, flowing into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate, are leading to a warming of the Earth, rising sea levels and other marked ecological changes.
Carbon dioxide, the principal “greenhouse” gas, is produced when fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas are burned. One way to reduce those emissions is to have more fuel-efficient cars.
“We own property, 200 miles of coastline, that we’re losing,” Massachusetts assistant attorney general James Milkey said on behalf of 12 states and 13 environmental groups that sued EPA.
Deputy Solicitor General Gregory Garre, representing the Bush administration, cautioned justices that EPA regulation could have a significant economic impact on the United States because 85 percent of the U.S. economy is tied to sources of greenhouse gas emissions.
Garre also argued that the EPA was right not to act given “the substantial scientific uncertainty surrounding global climate change.”
Roberts pointed out that regulating carbon dioxide emissions from new vehicles addresses just one aspect of an issue of global dimensions.
The argument by those pushing for EPA action on vehicle emissions might or might not be valid, but it “assumes everything else is going to remain constant,” Roberts observed.
Whether Roberts was correct, Congress is expected to become more involved next year in the debate on global warming because newly empowered Democrats have promised to give the issue a thorough airing..."
Well, now that we have the Democrats in office all our worries will be over... paraclete answered on 11/30/06:clearly a rediculous proposition since for carbon dioxide to be declared an air pollutant and eradicated would require the eradication of every tree in American and you would still be no better off.
Where do these tree huggers get these big minds who can see the issues so clearly?
You want the government to change it's attitude, change the government, you have started in the right direction, keep going until the government is willing to be responsible and look after the long term welfare of its people, not the interests of the big corporates | | Question/Answer | | Choux... asked on 11/29/06 - Atheist Comments on American Politics Sam Harris comments:
"While the religious divisions in our world are self-evident, many people still imagine that religious conflict is always caused by a lack of education, by poverty, or by politics. Yet the September 11th hijackers were college-educated, middle-class, and had no discernible experience of political oppression. They did, however, spend a remarkable amount of time at their local mosques talking about the depravity of infidels and about the pleasures that await martyrs in Paradise.
How many more architects and mechanical engineers must hit the wall at 400 miles an hour before we admit to ourselves that jihadist violence is not merely a matter of education, poverty, or politics? The truth, astonishingly enough, is that in the year 2006 a person can have sufficient intellectual and material resources to build a nuclear bomb and still believe that he will get 72 virgins in Paradise. Western secularists, liberals, and moderates have been very slow to understand this. The cause of their confusion is simple: They don't know what it is like to really believe in God.
The United States now stands alone in the developed world as a country that conducts its national discourse under the shadow of religious literalism. Eighty-three percent of the U.S. population believes that Jesus literally rose from the dead; 53% believe that the universe is 6,000 years old. This is embarrassing. Add to this comedy of false certainties the fact that 44% of Americans are confident that Jesus will return to Earth sometime in the next 50 years and you will glimpse the terrible liability of this sort of thinking.
Nearly half of the American population is eagerly anticipating the end of the world. This dewy-eyed nihilism provides absolutely no incentive to build a sustainable civilization. Many of these people are lunatics, but they are not the lunatic fringe. Some of them can actually get Karl Rove on the phone whenever they want.
While Muslim extremists now fly planes into our buildings, saw the heads off journalists and aid-workers, and riot by the tens of thousands over cartoons, several recent polls reveal that atheists are now the most reviled minority in the United States. A majority of Americans say they would refuse to vote for an atheist even if he were a "well-qualified candidate" from their own political party. Atheism, therefore, is a perfect impediment to holding elected office in this country (while being a woman, black, Muslim, Jewish, or gay is not). Most Americans also say that of all the unsavory alternatives on offer, they would be least likely to allow their child to marry an atheist. These declarations of prejudice might be enough to make some atheists angry. But they are not what makes me angry.
As an atheist, I am angry that we live in a society in which the plain truth cannot be spoken without offending 90% of the population. The plain truth is this: There is no good reason to believe in a personal God; there is no good reason to believe that the Bible, the Koran, or any other book was dictated by an omniscient being; we do not, in any important sense, get our morality from religion; the Bible and the Koran are not, even remotely, the best sources of guidance we have for living in the 21st century; and the belief in God and in the divine provenance of scripture is getting a lot of people killed unnecessarily."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Interesting points. Anyone wish to comment on what he said?
Those usual suspects who deposit hate, propaganda and lies as their answer....get one star....**I don't read your bs in answers or posts for that matter.
All I have to do is read the first sentence to detect same. :)
Serious answers welcome. paraclete answered on 11/30/06:"the plain truth" cannot be spoken. It's no wonder that athiests are reviled if they think that their version of the truth must be accepted when, in reality, it is they who are wrong.
I have a suggestion for athiests, get your head out of your ....... and you might see daylight | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 11/29/06 - December 7, 2008, began inauspiciously. At 0753 at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the attack that had triggered America's entry into World War II, sixty-seven years before, was ceremoniously commemorated, an honor guard, taps, a 21-gun salute, the bugle's notes and the rifles' crack drifting across the bay to the USS Arizona memorial, where Admiral Arthur Peterson, USN Ret., laid a wreath in memory of the sailors sleeping below, one of whom was his own grandfather.
On the West coast it was 1053, and in Washington D.C. it was one fifty-three in the afternoon, 1353 military
time.
In 2006 America, tired of War in Iraq, had elected Democrats to modest majorities in both houses of Congress. Representative Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House, third in line for the presidency. In the spring of 2007, on a narrow, party-line vote, Congress, led by Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy
and Barbara Boxer refused to authorize spending to continue the war in Iraq, and set September 30, 2007, as the deadline for complete withdrawal of American troops.
President Bush spoke to the country, to the American forces in Iraq, to those who had been there, and to
the Iraqi people, to apologize for the short-sightedness and irresponsibility of the American congress and the tragedy he believed would follow after leaving task of nurturing a representative and stable government in Iraq half done, his voice choked, tears running down his stoic face, a betrayal of emotion for which he was resoundingly criticized and denounced in much of America's media.
The level of violence across Iraq immediately subsided, as the Americans began preparations to redeploy back to the States. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad praised the new Congress for its clear vision and sound judgment. America's Democrats rejoiced and congratulated themselves for bringing peace with honor
and ending the illegal war based on lies that George Bush had begun only to enrich his friends in the
military-industrial complex, and promised to retake the Presidency in 2008.
"The failure of many Americans, including many of the leading Democrats in Congress, and some Republicans, to fully appreciate the persistent, long-term threat posed to America's liberties and survival, and to the future of Liberal Democracies everywhere, by an Islamic Resistance Movement that envisions a world dominated and defined by an Islamic Caliphate of religious totalitarianism, and which will fight any
war, make any sacrifice, suffer any hardship, and pay any price to achieve it, may prove to be the kind of
blunder upon which the fate of America turns, and falls."
At 1000 on September 30, 2007, precisely on schedule, the last C-5A Galaxy carrying the last company of
American combat troops in Iraq had roared down the Baghdad runway and lifted into the air. Only a few
hundred American technical and military advisers and political liaisons remained in-country.
The Galaxy's wheels had scarcely retracted when Iraq erupted in the real civil war many had feared and
foreseen, and which many others had predicted would not happen if only the American imperialists left
Iraq. Sunni militias, Shia militias, and Al Qaeda militias ravaged and savaged the country, killing
hundreds of thousands of Iraqis known or suspected to have collaborated with the Americans, killing Shias
for being Shias, Sunnis for being Sunnis, Americans for being Americans, and anyone else who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
By noon, not one of the American advisers and liaisons left behind remained alive. Many had been beheaded as they screamed. Most of their bodies were dumped in the river and never seen again. In the next thirty days more than a million Iraqis died. The General Assembly of the United Nations voted to condemn the violence, and recessed for lunch and martinis. In America, there was no political will to redeploy back to Iraq. And after a few months of rabid bloodletting, the situation in Iraq calmed to a tense simmer of sporadic violence and political jockeying, punctuated by the occasional assassination, while several million refugees fled the country. Only Kurdistan, in the north, which had thrown up a line of its Peshmurga fighters to keep the southern violence away, remained stable and at relative peace.
In the spring of 2008 America began its quadrennial circus of a national election, and in November elected
a Democrat, the Junior Senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as it next president, to the surprise
of few. Her running mate, to the surprise of many, was San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, whose intelligence, charisma, and reputation as an indefatigable campaigner for gay marriage and the homeless of San Francisco helped solidify Clinton's support among liberal Democrats who only grudgingly forgave her for
not openly opposing the Iraq war sooner, and the Clinton-Newsom ticket went to the top with a narrow 50.2% lead over Republican John McCain's 49.8% of the popular vote, despite, or perhaps because of,
Clinton's and Newsom's lack of foreign policy and military experience.
America, or a slim voting majority of it, felt it had had all the war it ever wanted to see, and Hillary had
led her party to a glorious (if narrow) victory with the unambiguous slogan: "Clinton & Newsom: No More
War." Crowds at every whistle stop had cheered and chanted, No more war! No more war! No more war! At
victory parties George Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice were hung and sometimes burned in effigy, enthusiastic crowds chanted "No more war!" many times more, and local
bands cranked up the theme from the first Clinton electoral victory, "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow...yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone...," and indeed, it was.
President Bush had been a very lame duck since the 2006 election, and with a Democratic Congress could do little but veto most of the bills it sent him. The Democrats couldn't override his vetoes, so for nearly two years almost nothing important had been accomplished by anyone on the Hill or in the White House. After the 2008 election it was transition time, flocks and herds of thoroughly demoralized Republican staff began leaving Washington in search of greener pastures, Congress adjourned for the Holidays, Democrats came house hunting, and Clinton and Newsom began the briefings they would get from a fully cooperative Bush administration on the state of the nation and the state of the world they would inherit and have to cope with for the next four years, or eight, and in those last weeks of November both Hillary and Gavin seemed to age rather quickly. The exhilaration of the campaign was over, and the weight of a tumultuous world began to settle on their shoulders.
Back in early October, 2006, North Korean President (for life) Kim Jong Il had announced the detonation of
a nuclear bomb deep in a tunnel in the stony mountains of North Korea. The seismic signature had been small, and American intelligence at first doubted whether it had been a nuclear explosion at all. Traces of
radioactive emissions were detected a few days later, and the intelligence estimate revised to conclude that
it had been a failed test that produced perhaps only 10% or less of the expected yield, only 0.5 to 1.5
kilotons, not the 20 kilotons, at least, that Western intelligence had anticipated.
Kim Jong Il gloated. The deception had worked. The Americans were thinking in terms of long range
intercontinental ballistic missiles with huge warheads that they could shoot out of the sky with their
sophisticated billion-dollar anti-missile defense systems. He was thinking in terms of small warheads
carried by small, medium range cruise missiles that could be launched from many places, and infiltrated
close enough to slip in under the radar and hit America's coastal cities.
On the evening of December 6, 2008, a junior analyst in the National Security Agency was going over routine satellite photo production of ship movements in the Atlantic and Pacific within a thousand miles of the US coasts. Late in the shift he thought he saw something through a haze of fatigue and caffeine, and called a supervisor over to talk.
"Look," he said, photos up on several computer screens, more printed out and spread across his desk,
"See? These boats, not big ships, fishing boats, yachts, they've been moving in along shipping lanes
for several days, across from the South Pacific toward the West coast, up from the South Atlantic toward the
east. Nothing very unusual, they're all small and slow, and scattered up and down the oceans, it seems,
but if you look at the times and courses..." and he pulled out a chart he had plotted, "They're approaching so they will all arrive at about the same time, or all be about the same distance off the coast at about the same time...," he trailed off.
The supervisor looked a bit quizzical. "Coincidence? Probably. You need more sleep. Too much fun in the
night, eh? Let me know if you see something we can do something with." And walked away.
At 0723 Hawaii time on the 67th Anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack three old fishing trawlers, about
100 miles apart, and each about 300 miles off the east coast, launched six small cruise missiles from launch
tubes that could be dismantled and stored in the holds under ice, or fish, and set up in less than an hour.
The missiles were launched at precisely one minute intervals. As soon as each boat had launched its pair,
the skeleton crew began to abandon ship into a fast rubber inflatable. The captain was last off, and just
before going overboard started the timer on the scuttling charges. Fifteen minutes later and ten miles
away, each crew was going up the nets into a small freighter or tanker of Moroccan or Liberian registry,
where each man was issued new identification as ship's crew. The rubber inflatables were shot and sunk, and just about then charges in the bilges of each of the three trawlers blew the hulls out, and they sank with
no one on board and no distress signals in less than two minutes.
The missiles had been built in a joint operation by North Korea and Iran, and tested in Iran, so they would not have to overfly any other country. The small nuclear warheads had only been tested deep underground. The GPS guidance and detonating systems had worked perfectly, after a few corrections. They flew fifty feet above sea level, and 500 feet above ground level on the last leg of the trip, using computers and terrain data modified from open market technology and flight directors, autopilots, adapted from commercial aviation units. They would adjust speed to arrive on target at specific times and altitudes, and detonate upon reaching the programmed GPS coordinates. They were not as adaptable and intelligent as American cruise missiles, but they did not need to be. Not for this mission.
They were small, less than twenty feet long, and only 18 inches in diameter, powered by small, quiet, fuel-efficient, high-bypass turbofans, and painted in a mottled light blue and light gray ghost camouflage.
Cruising at 600 knots, just below the speed of sound, they were nearly impossible to see or hear. They came in under the radar until they reached the coast. After that they were lost in the ground clutter. Nobody saw it coming.
At precisely 0753, Hawaii time, 1353 in the District of Columbia, sixty-seven years to the minute after the
Pearl Harbor attack began, the first of six missiles to hit the Washington area exploded in a huge white
burst of nuclear fire just 500 feet above the White House, which disappeared in a mist of powdered plaster and stone, concrete and steel. President Bush and President-Elect Clinton had been meeting with Condoleezza Rice and Mrs. Clinton's national security adviser, reviewing the latest National Security Estimate, when they instantaneously turned into a plasma of the atomic elements that had once been human beings. No trace remained.
Alarms immediately began going off all over Washington, and precisely one minute later the second
missile exploded just as it struck the Capital dome, instantly turning thousands of tons of granite that had one moment before been the nation's center of government into thousands of tons of granite shrapnel that shredded several square miles of Washington like a leviathan Claymore mine. At precisely one minute
intervals, four more 3 kiloton nuclear weapons exploded at an altitude of 500 feet AGL above the Pentagon, the CIA headquarters, the NSA headquarters, the FBI headquarters, all of which were fully staffed in the middle of the day. In five minutes, the government of the United States of America was decapitated, and a quarter million of the people who made the place run were dead, or dying, or had simply disappeared.
Also at 1353 Eastern time, a missile had blown off just above the New York Stock Exchange, in New York
City, and thousands of years of collective financial knowledge and experience evaporated in the nuclear
flame. In one minute intervals, others had hit the financial centers of Boston and Baltimore, and the
Naval base at Norfolk, Virginia.
Simultaneously, within the same 10-minute window of hell, nuclear tipped cruise missiles devastated the
largest intermodel shipping facility on the West coast at San Pedro harbor, exploded just above the Library
Tower in central Los Angeles, and short circuited the computer technology ghetto of Silicon Valley in Santa
Clara County, big time. One exploded ten feet away from the top of the Bank of America Building in San
Francisco and set much of the east slope of the city ablaze. Another giant fireball flared among the phalanx of office towers along the Capitol Mall in Sacramento, instantly obliterating Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state government of California, the largest state economy in the US, the seventh largest economy in the world. Two ripped open the heart of Portland, Oregon, one shattered the financial district of Seattle, and the last one turned the Microsoft campus into a pillar of fire and smoke, wiping from the face of history, in a second, the IT giant that had revolutionized global communications.
It was 0803, Hawaii time. Ten minutes.
Three million Americans dead. And not a trace of the assault fleet remained on the surface of any ocean.
Vice-President Elect Gavin Newsom was in his bedroom at home in Pacific Heights, his window overlooking the Golden Gate and the Marin bluffs. He thought he heard an oddly loud crack of thunder and saw a flash
reflected on the hills across the inlet, but it was a clear day and nothing else seemed out of place. He
continued packing for the return trip to Washington, his second since the election, to continue his transition briefings and begin organizing his staff. His nomination as Hillary's running mate had come as a huge surprise, and he was elated.
Someone rapped on the door, loudly, twice, and without waiting for a reply the senior Secret Service officer
on his detail opened it and stepped quickly in. "Come with me, now," he said. Gavin was startled. "I need to
finish packing," he replied. "No time, sir. Something has happened. Very big.
No details yet. We have to get you out of here, NOW! RIGHT NOW! GO! GO! GO!" He grabbed Newsom's arm, swung him around, and pushed him out the door, where two other Secret Service agents flanked him down the stairs and out to a running black Suburban waiting in the garage. They pushed him into the back seat, jumped in, and the driver gunned the engine, out the drive, down the street, tires squealing. Nobody spoke until they were headed over the Bridge, northbound at seventy-five miles an hour, weaving through the traffic which wasn't yet the gridlock it would soon become.
"What the hell's going on?" he finally demanded.
"Okay. This is what I know," the officer said. "The US has apparently sustained multiple nuclear attacks in
the last fifteen minutes, including Washington D.C. and San Francisco. Financial district. We're not sure
how many, at least ten, maybe twenty. Lots of dead. Got the White House, the Capital, the Pentagon. Our
job is to get you on an airplane at the nearest functioning airport, that'll be Novato, and get you to a safe place.."
"Where?" Newsom asked. Things were moving way too fast now.
"Don't know yet. We'll get orders."
The Air Force Learjet had been airborne for two minutes when a cell phone buzzed, and the Secret
Service captain answered it and handed it off to the Vice President Elect. "It's Mr. Cheney, sir," he said.
"Gavin?" Dick Cheney asked. "Yes, sir," Newsom replied, subdued, for the events of the last hour had
sobered up his elated mood considerably.
"Okay, Gavin. I don't know what you know, so I'll tell you what I can. There have been approximately 20 nuclear strikes on government and financial targets in the US, about an hour ago. No real damage estimate
yet, except that it's awful. A hundred times 9/11, maybe a thousand times. I happened to be at the Air
Force Academy in Colorado Springs, and have moved into Cheyenne Mountain to set up a temporary HQ, until we get things sorted out. As you know Cheyenne was vacated by NORAD a few years ago, so we have plenty of space. You will be flown here, nonstop."
"I know you haven't a lot of national and international experience." Cheney had thought of saying that Newsom had none, but Newsom would be too painfully aware of that. He didn't need reminding. "The President is missing and presumed dead. So is Mrs. Clinton. So you may become the next president, in
about six weeks. I don't know. he Constitution says the Vice President succeeds a president who is dead or
disabled, but it doesn't say what happens if the President Elect dies before being inaugurated. I suppose the Court will have to answer that, if we can cobble one together by then. In the meantime, I will assume you will be inaugurated. You'll have a steep learning curve, a real steep curve. All presidents do, under the best of circumstances, and these are not the best of circumstances."
The next day a hard winter storm roared down the West coast from Alaska, pelting rescue workers in bombed out city centers with hard, cold rain, that did not let up for a week. People alive but injured or trapped in the wreckage died of hypothermia before they were found. Two days later, a cold front out of Canada brought heavy snow to the Northeast. Millions were already without electricity, and in a week of subzero weather hundreds of thousands more died. More than four million, altogether. More than one of every one hundred Americans.
Al Qaeda had picked December 7 because it was the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and
because, just before Christmas, the Infidel holiday, it would destroy the Christmas shopping season so
important to so many retailers, driving another nail into the national economy of the Great Satan. And it
would destroy the festive spirit of the season for millions of Americans, perhaps for all. The perfect
psyop. Psychological warfare. And the weather forecasters had predicted severe winter storms on both
coasts during the week immediately after disaster.
Al Qaeda leaders had calculated, correctly, that by turning up the violence in Iraq during the weeks
before the 2006 election it could achieve an anti-war Democratic Congress that would vote to end America's
wars in the Middle East, and then by turning down the violence in Iraq after the election of an anti-war
Democratic Congress, it could lull America into a false sense of safety and security in anticipation of
the "peace in our time" that America's new ruling party had promised would follow from what Al Qaeda
perceived, correctly, as America's retreat before the unstoppable determination of the Islamic Resistance
Movement, the Jihad. America did not call it that, of course. The Americans thought they were just ending a
bad and illegal war ginned up by George W. Bush to depose Saddam Hussein who had proven not to have WMDs after all, the ones the Americans had never found, the ones buried in Syria. Al Qaeda saw more clearly. It was a capitulation, a de facto surrender of the Middle East to the coming Islamic Caliphate that would someday rule the world. The martyrs of Islam had beaten the Great Satan to its knees. In time they
would cut off its head.
By Christmas, the American economy had imploded. Inflation soared, unemployment soared, businesses
closed, cities that had suffered direct hits became ghost towns. Tax revenues evaporated, leaving state
governments without funds to pay unemployment benefits or teachers' salaries. With the New York Stock
Exchange gone, stock trading ended, and values plummeted. Retirement assets and pension funds
disappeared in a wink. Nobody knew what to expect. Real estate crashed, and major banks filed for
bankruptcy. With the collapse of the American economy, the largest on earth, the most productive country on earth, with just 5% of the global population producing one third of the global economic output, the rest of
the global economy fell into chaos. Oil shipments stopped, food shipments stopped, and in that winter
millions of people in third world countries starved to death.
The America era was over.
"In the spring of 1941, Nazi Germany was poised to dominate the earth. France, the low countries, Norway,
Denmark, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Greece, and much of Poland had been overrun by the Germans. All of Europe, save neutral Sweden and Switzerland, was in the hands of Hitler's friends and allies: dictators or monarchs who ruled fascist Italy, Vichy France, Franco's Spain, Portugal, the Balkan
countries, Finland, and above all the Soviet Union."
"A single German division under General Erwin Rommel, sent to rescue beleaguered Italians in Libya, drove
Britain's Middle Eastern armies flying and threatened the Suez lifeline; while in Iraq a coup d'etat by the
pro-German Rashid Ali cut the land road to India. In Asia, Germany's ally, Japan, was coiled to strike,
ready to take Southeast Asia and invade India. No need to involve the United States; by seizing the Indies,
Japan could break the American embargo and obtain all the oil needed for the Axis Powers to pursue their war aims.
"Hitler should have sent the bulk of his armies to serve under Rommel, who would have done what Alexander did and Bonaparte failed to do: He would have taken the Middle East and led his armies to India. There he would have linked up with the Japanese. Europe, Asia, and Africa, would have belonged to the coalition of dictators and militarists."
"The Nazi-Soviet-Japanese alliance commanded armed forces and resources that utterly dwarfed the military resources that the holdouts, Britain (with its empire), and the United States, could field. The
English-speaking countries would have been isolated in a hostile world and would have had no realistic option but to make their peace with the enemy, retaining some autonomy for a time, perhaps, but doomed ultimately to succumb. Nazi Germany, as leader of the coalition, would have ruled the world."
"Only Hitler's astonishing blunder in betraying and invading his Soviet ally kept it from happening." -
David Frompkin, Professor of International Relations and History, Boston University, writing in What If:
Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been
(Putnam 1999) pp. 308,
309.
History is made, wars are won and lost, cultures and nations and civilizations come and go, rise and fall,
as much by blunders as by victories.
The failure of many Americans, including many of the leading Democrats in Congress, and some Republicans, to fully appreciate the persistent, long-term threat posed to America's liberties and survival, and to the future of Liberal Democracies everywhere, by an Islamic Resistance Movement that envisions a world dominated and defined by an Islamic Caliphate of religious totalitarianism, and which will fight any
war, make any sacrifice, suffer any hardship, and pay any price to achieve it, may prove to be the kind of
blunder upon which the fate of America turns, and falls.
Raymond S. Kraft is an attorney and writer in northern California.
paraclete answered on 11/29/06:a remarkable piece of fiction when will the movie be released, it should be an instant success | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 11/29/06 - Idiocy run amuck Get this ; Fairfax Co Va. just initiated a new regulation that bans food for homeless shelters that is cooked in charitable minded peoples homes UNLESS the kitchen involved is first approved by the county .
From the Washington Compost
Under state and county code, food served to the public must be prepared in a kitchen that has been inspected and certified by the county Health Department. Those standards are high: a commercial-grade refrigerator, a three-compartment sink to wash, rinse and sanitize dishes and a separate hand-washing sink, among other requirements.
So if a church that services the homeless doesn't comply with these strict standards they can no longer feed the hungry according to the county .
There is a network of over three dozen churches that operate hypothermia shelters for the homeless .Which will mean that many of them will not be permitted to cook meals for their guests.
The Rev. Judy Fender of Burke United Methodist Church said 50 volunteers had been planning to cook beef stew, pork loin and other nutritious meals in the church kitchen when it hosts the hypothermia shelter Dec. 17 through 23.
But she found out this week that, because the kitchen is not Health Department-approved, it will have to prepare its food elsewhere.
It will be a logistical nightmare, Fender predicted, and is an insult to members who have cooked meals for years in the church kitchen without any problems.
"Why do [they] think that the traditional way of fixing a home-cooked meal is going to poison people off the street?" Fender asked.
Even year round shelters will be impacted as they frequently receive donations of prepared meals;casseroles ,baked goods ...even leftovers .
Such a regulation raises costs for those who operate out of the goodness of their hearts ; and will probably crowd out all those except for the largest, well-financed operations.
It will discourage start-up operations, or just everyday benevolence. You want to share your leftovers with the guy on the corner? Nice try, but is that kitchen inspected and certified approved ?
The county monopolozes the very area of public life that is supposed to be free from government regulation ,and thrives best without it.Do we now need to ask the county for permission to act charitably ? I wonder if they will certifiy the dumpsters that the homeless will have to scavange in once they cannot find a certified kitchen to eat in .
paraclete answered on 11/29/06:there is only one answer to petty fogging officialdum, invite the homeless into their homes for meals. As far as the Church kitchen is concerned it should follow all public health rules. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 11/27/06 - Cut and Run, the Only Brave Thing to Do An addendum to my reply to Choux...
Sunday, November 26th, 2006
Friends,
Tomorrow marks the day that we will have been in Iraq longer than we were in all of World War II.
That's right. We were able to defeat all of Nazi Germany, Mussolini, and the entire Japanese empire in LESS time than it's taken the world's only superpower to secure the road from the airport to downtown Baghdad.
And we haven't even done THAT. After 1,347 days, in the same time it took us to took us to sweep across North Africa, storm the beaches of Italy, conquer the South Pacific, and liberate all of Western Europe, we cannot, after over 3 and 1/2 years, even take over a single highway and protect ourselves from a homemade device of two tin cans placed in a pothole. No wonder the cab fare from the airport into Baghdad is now running around $35,000 for the 25-minute ride. And that doesn't even include a friggin' helmet.
Is this utter failure the fault of our troops? Hardly. That's because no amount of troops or choppers or democracy shot out of the barrel of a gun is ever going to "win" the war in Iraq. It is a lost war, lost because it never had a right to be won, lost because it was started by men who have never been to war, men who hide behind others sent to fight and die.
Let's listen to what the Iraqi people are saying, according to a recent poll conducted by the University of Maryland:
** 71% of all Iraqis now want the U.S. out of Iraq.
** 61% of all Iraqis SUPPORT insurgent attacks on U.S. troops.
Yes, the vast majority of Iraqi citizens believe that our soldiers should be killed and maimed! So what the hell are we still doing there? Talk about not getting the hint.
There are many ways to liberate a country. Usually the residents of that country rise up and liberate themselves. That's how we did it. You can also do it through nonviolent, mass civil disobedience. That's how India did it. You can get the world to boycott a regime until they are so ostracized they capitulate. That's how South Africa did it. Or you can just wait them out and, sooner or later, the king's legions simply leave (sometimes just because they're too cold). That's how Canada did it.
The one way that DOESN'T work is to invade a country and tell the people, "We are here to liberate you!" -- when they have done NOTHING to liberate themselves. Where were all the suicide bombers when Saddam was oppressing them? Where were the insurgents planting bombs along the roadside as the evildoer Saddam's convoy passed them by? I guess ol' Saddam was a cruel despot -- but not cruel enough for thousands to risk their necks. "Oh no, Mike, they couldn't do that! Saddam would have had them killed!" Really? You don't think King George had any of the colonial insurgents killed? You don't think Patrick Henry or Tom Paine were afraid? That didn't stop them. When tens of thousands aren't willing to shed their own blood to remove a dictator, that should be the first clue that they aren't going to be willing participants when you decide you're going to do the liberating for them.
A country can HELP another people overthrow a tyrant (that's what the French did for us in our revolution), but after you help them, you leave. Immediately. The French didn't stay and tell us how to set up our government. They didn't say, "we're not leaving because we want your natural resources." They left us to our own devices and it took us six years before we had an election. And then we had a bloody civil war. That's what happens, and history is full of these examples. The French didn't say, "Oh, we better stay in America, otherwise they're going to kill each other over that slavery issue!"
The only way a war of liberation has a chance of succeeding is if the oppressed people being liberated have their own citizens behind them -- and a group of Washingtons, Jeffersons, Franklins, Ghandis and Mandellas leading them. Where are these beacons of liberty in Iraq? This is a joke and it's been a joke since the beginning. Yes, the joke's been on us, but with 655,000 Iraqis now dead as a result of our invasion (source: Johns Hopkins University), I guess the cruel joke is on them. At least they've been liberated, permanently.
So I don't want to hear another word about sending more troops (wake up, America, John McCain is bonkers), or "redeploying" them, or waiting four months to begin the "phase-out." There is only one solution and it is this: Leave. Now. Start tonight. Get out of there as fast as we can. As much as people of good heart and conscience don't want to believe this, as much as it kills us to accept defeat, there is nothing we can do to undo the damage we have done. What's happened has happened. If you were to drive drunk down the road and you killed a child, there would be nothing you could do to bring that child back to life. If you invade and destroy a country, plunging it into a civil war, there isn't much you can do 'til the smoke settles and blood is mopped up. Then maybe you can atone for the atrocity you have committed and help the living come back to a better life.
The Soviet Union got out of Afghanistan in 36 weeks. They did so and suffered hardly any losses as they left. They realized the mistake they had made and removed their troops. A civil war ensued. The bad guys won. Later, we overthrew the bad guys and everybody lived happily ever after. See! It all works out in the end!
The responsibility to end this war now falls upon the Democrats. Congress controls the purse strings and the Constitution says only Congress can declare war. Mr. Reid and Ms. Pelosi now hold the power to put an end to this madness. Failure to do so will bring the wrath of the voters. We aren't kidding around, Democrats, and if you don't believe us, just go ahead and continue this war another month. We will fight you harder than we did the Republicans. The opening page of my website has a photo of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, each made up by a collage of photos of the American soldiers who have died in Bush's War. But it is now about to become the Bush/Democratic Party War unless swift action is taken.
This is what we demand:
1. Bring the troops home now. Not six months from now. NOW. Quit looking for a way to win. We can't win. We've lost. Sometimes you lose. This is one of those times. Be brave and admit it.
2. Apologize to our soldiers and make amends. Tell them we are sorry they were used to fight a war that had NOTHING to do with our national security. We must commit to taking care of them so that they suffer as little as possible. The mentally and physically maimed must get the best care and significant financial compensation. The families of the deceased deserve the biggest apology and they must be taken care of for the rest of their lives.
3. We must atone for the atrocity we have perpetuated on the people of Iraq. There are few evils worse than waging a war based on a lie, invading another country because you want what they have buried under the ground. Now many more will die. Their blood is on our hands, regardless for whom we voted. If you pay taxes, you have contributed to the three billion dollars a week now being spent to drive Iraq into the hellhole it's become. When the civil war is over, we will have to help rebuild Iraq. We can receive no redemption until we have atoned.
In closing, there is one final thing I know. We Americans are better than what has been done in our name. A majority of us were upset and angry after 9/11 and we lost our minds. We didn't think straight and we never looked at a map. Because we are kept stupid through our pathetic education system and our lazy media, we knew nothing of history. We didn't know that WE were the ones funding and arming Saddam for many years, including those when he massacred the Kurds. He was our guy. We didn't know what a Sunni or a Shiite was, never even heard the words. Eighty percent of our young adults (according to National Geographic) were not able to find Iraq on the map. Our leaders played off our stupidity, manipulated us with lies, and scared us to death.
But at our core we are a good people. We may be slow learners, but that "Mission Accomplished" banner struck us as odd, and soon we began to ask some questions. Then we began to get smart. By this past November 7th, we got mad and tried to right our wrongs. The majority now know the truth. The majority now feel a deep sadness and guilt and a hope that somehow we can make make it all right again.
Unfortunately, we can't. So we will accept the consequences of our actions and do our best to be there should the Iraqi people ever dare to seek our help in the future. We ask for their forgiveness.
We demand the Democrats listen to us and get out of Iraq now.
Yours,
Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
mmflint@aol.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I replied to the previous post prior to reading this email from Moore in which I said, "That is exactly what the left wants us to do, give up..."
Moore: As much as people of good heart and conscience don't want to believe this, as much as it kills us to accept defeat...
"cut our losses..."
Moore: Bring the troops home now. Not six months from now. NOW. Quit looking for a way to win. We can't win. We've lost. Sometimes you lose. This is one of those times. Be brave and admit it.
"add a good dose of self-chastisement..."
Moore: Apologize to our soldiers and make amends. Tell them we are sorry they were used to fight a war that had NOTHING to do with our national security...The families of the deceased deserve the biggest apology and they must be taken care of for the rest of their lives...We must atone for the atrocity we have perpetuated on the people of Iraq. There are few evils worse than waging a war based on a lie, invading another country because you want what they have buried under the ground...The majority now feel a deep sadness and guilt and a hope that somehow we can make make it all right again. Unfortunately, we can't. So we will accept the consequences of our actions and do our best to be there should the Iraqi people ever dare to seek our help in the future. We ask for their forgiveness."
"mind our own business"
Moore: We aren't kidding around, Democrats, and if you don't believe us, just go ahead and continue this war another month. We will fight you harder than we did the Republicans
"and opening the door to the full fledged civil war in Iraq they've bemoaned for the past year."
Moore: When the civil war is over, we will have to help rebuild Iraq.
So many questions on this pathetic tirade where does one start? How about, is it not rather callous and hypocritical to repeatedly throw tantrums over an alleged 髧,000' dead Iraqis and then resign oneself - in a rather cavalier way - to civil war?
And then we had a bloody civil war. That's what happens.
On his Afghanistan remarks, is Moore saying after the bad guys win in Iraq it will then be ok to come in and defeat the bad guys so everyone can live happily ever after?
Can anyone explain this mindset?paraclete answered on 11/27/06:Moore is one American who has got the message. However unpalitable this message is, it has to get through sooner or later. He is right, 9/11 enraged americans and in blind rage they struck Iraq, which was a symbol of Islamic defiance and militancy for them. He is right to say that america struck Iraq out of ignorance and with the intent of securing their oil. There is now nothing america can do to stop an iraqi civil war, that war has nothing to do with them, the reasons are ancient.
No one wins in Iraq, no win-win situation here. That sort of thinking is what got america into the problem and it won't get them out
America looses, Iraq looses and ultimately Al Qaeda looses. If america leaves the iraqi will turn on al qaeda | | Question/Answer | | Choux... asked on 11/26/06 - Question for Tom and Elliot Excerpted from the transcript of ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Is it a civil war in Iraq right now?
KING ABDULLAH: Well, George, the difficulty that we're tackling with here is, we're juggling with the strong potential of three civil wars in the region, whether it's the (1.)Palestinians, that of (2.)Lebanon or of (3.)Iraq...
... And we could possibly imagine going into 2007 and having three civil wars on our hands. And therefore, it is time that we really take a strong step forward as part of the international community and make sure we avert the Middle East from a tremendous crisis that I fear, and I see could possibly happen in 2007.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have a serious question based on this quote.
Was it one of the goals of the Bush Administration and the NeoCons to have the Middle East go up for grabs, as it were? A secondary alternative to the naive quest to install "Democracy" in Iraq and watch it flower and spread to their neighbors?
Choux
PS-I'm not altogether sure my work is done here in view of the situation in the middle east. paraclete answered on 11/27/06:it's good to hear the view of someone on the ground with a real interest in the outcome, instead of listening to bull coming out of WASHINGTON, WHERE THERE IS LITTLE REAL INTERST IN THE OUTCOME | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 11/20/06 - A European Utopia is just a car ride away. or : Fun fun fun on the autoban goes urban .
From der Spiegel European Cities Do Away with Traffic Signs
"We reject every form of legislation," the Russian aristocrat and "father of anarchism" Mikhail Bakunin once thundered. The czar banished him to Siberia. But now it seems his ideas are being rediscovered.
European traffic planners are dreaming of streets free of rules and directives. They want drivers and pedestrians to interact in a free and humane way, as brethren -- by means of friendly gestures, nods of the head and eye contact, without the harassment of prohibitions, restrictions and warning signs.
A project implemented by the European Union is currently seeing seven cities and regions clear-cutting their forest of traffic signs. Ejby, in Denmark, is participating in the experiment, as are Ipswich in England and the Belgian town of Ostende.
The utopia has already become a reality in Makkinga, in the Dutch province of Western Frisia. A sign by the entrance to the small town (population 1,000) reads "Verkeersbordvrij" -- "free of traffic signs." Cars bumble unhurriedly over precision-trimmed granite cobblestones. Stop signs and direction signs are nowhere to be seen. There are neither parking meters nor stopping restrictions. There aren't even any lines painted on the streets.
"The many rules strip us of the most important thing: the ability to be considerate. We're losing our capacity for socially responsible behavior," says Dutch traffic guru Hans Monderman, one of the project's co-founders. "The greater the number of prescriptions, the more people's sense of personal responsibility dwindles."
Monderman could be on to something. Germany has 648 valid traffic symbols. The inner cities are crowded with a colorful thicket of metal signs. Don't park over here, watch out for passing deer over there, make sure you don't skid. The forest of signs is growing ever denser. Some 20 million traffic signs have already been set up all over the country.
Psychologists have long revealed the senselessness of such exaggerated regulation. About 70 percent of traffic signs are ignored by drivers. What's more, the glut of prohibitions is tantamount to treating the driver like a child and it also foments resentment. He may stop in front of the crosswalk, but that only makes him feel justified in preventing pedestrians from crossing the street on every other occasion. Every traffic light baits him with the promise of making it over the crossing while the light is still yellow.
The result is that drivers find themselves enclosed by a corset of prescriptions, so that they develop a kind of tunnel vision: They're constantly in search of their own advantage, and their good manners go out the window.
The new traffic model's advocates believe the only way out of this vicious circle is to give drivers more liberty and encourage them to take responsibility for themselves. They demand streets like those during the Middle Ages, when horse-drawn chariots, handcarts and people scurried about in a completely unregulated fashion. The new model's proponents envision today's drivers and pedestrians blending into a colorful and peaceful traffic stream.
It may sound like chaos, but it's only the lesson drawn from one of the insights of traffic psychology: Drivers will force the accelerator down ruthlessly only in situations where everything has been fully regulated. Where the situation is unclear, they're forced to drive more carefully and cautiously.
Indeed, "Unsafe is safe" was the motto of a conference where proponents of the new roadside philosophy met in Frankfurt in mid-October.
True, many of them aren't convinced of the new approach. "German drivers are used to rules," says Michael Schreckenberg of Duisburg University. If clear directives are abandoned, domestic rush-hour traffic will turn into an Oriental-style bazaar, he warns. He believes the new vision of drivers and pedestrians interacting in a cozy, relaxed way will work, at best, only for small towns.
But one German borough is already daring to take the step into lawlessness. The town of Bohmte in Lower Saxony has 13,500 inhabitants. It's traversed by a country road and a main road. Cars approach speedily, delivery trucks stop to unload their cargo and pedestrians scurry by on elevated sidewalks.
The road will be re-furbished in early 2007, using EU funds. "The sidewalks are going to go, and the asphalt too. Everything will be covered in cobblestones," Klaus Goedejohann, the mayor, explains. "We're getting rid of the division between cars and pedestrians."
The plans derive inspiration and motivation from a large-scale experiment in the town of Drachten in the Netherlands, which has 45,000 inhabitants. There, cars have already been driving over red natural stone for years. Cyclists dutifully raise their arm when they want to make a turn, and drivers communicate by hand signs, nods and waving.
"More than half of our signs have already been scrapped," says traffic planner Koop Kerkstra. "Only two out of our original 18 traffic light crossings are left, and we've converted them to roundabouts." Now traffic is regulated by only two rules in Drachten: "Yield to the right" and "Get in someone's way and you'll be towed."
Strange as it may seem, the number of accidents has declined dramatically. Experts from Argentina and the United States have visited Drachten. Even London has expressed an interest in this new example of automobile anarchy. And the model is being tested in the British capital's Kensington neighborhood.
traffic rules ? we don't need no stinkin rules !
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paraclete answered on 11/20/06:anything the Europeans do is bizzaire, the idea they had for roundabouts which is essentially the same thing quickly got out of hand. They are not reasonable peopel so how do they expect peopel to act reasonably | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 11/17/06 - ONE vs THE OTHER:
What's the REAL difference between the President of a Nation and a Dictator of a Nation? (Remember the line-item veto comes into play)
HANK
paraclete answered on 11/18/06:The true meaning of president is one who is presiding as in the chairman of an assembly and that person does only what the assembly empowers him to do, while a dictator had all power centralised in him and is answerable to noone.
Is George Bush a dictator, not yet but he has acquired some powers not given to him by the assembly | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 11/16/06 - Towards unbiased reporting on climate change since a recent post indicated a highly biased position, those with interest in this subject might like to visit
www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org
where evidence is portrayed giving you the opportunity to make up your own mind paraclete answered on 11/17/06:yes Certainly less biased than the last post | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 11/16/06 - Global Warming Happens According to a study by the Denis Avery and Fred Singer, adjunct scholars with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA*), human activities have little to do with the Earth's current warming trend.Warming and cooling seem to be part of a 1,500-year cycle of moderate temperature swings.
"The evidence supporting a 1,500- year cycle is too great to dismiss," said Singer, professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia and president of the Science and Environment Policy Project. "Evidence from every continent and ocean confirms the 1,500-year cycle," added Avery, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute .
According to Avery and Singer, within the 90,000-year Ice Age cycles, the Earth also experiences 1,500-year warming-cooling cycles. The current warming began about 1850 and will possibly continue for another 500 years. Their findings are drawn from physical evidence of past climate cycles that have been documented by researchers around the world from tree rings and ice cores, stalagmites and dust plumes, prehistoric villages and collapsed cultures, fossilized pollen and algae skeletons, titanium profiles and niobium ions, and other sources.
According to the authors:
An ice core from the Antarctic's Vostok Glacier showed the same 1,500-year cycle through its 400,000-year length.
The ice-core findings correlated with known glacier advances and retreats in northern Europe.
Independent data in a seabed sediment core from the Atlantic Ocean west of Ireland, showed nine of the 1,500-year cycles in the last 12,000 years.
Considered collectively, the author's findings are clear and convincing evidence of a 1,500-year climate cycle. And if the current warming trend is part of a natural cycle, then actions to prevent further warming would be futile, could impose substantial costs upon the global economy and lessen the ability of the world's peoples to adapt to the impacts of climate change. You can read their findings in detail in their book 'Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1500 Years '
More information here
[*The NCPA is an internationally known nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute with offices in Dallas and Washington, D.C.] paraclete answered on 11/16/06:yes Global warming happens but you are selectively quoting the article. If, as you and the author allege, there is a fifteen hundred year cycle, can you explain the less than fifteen hundred year occurence cited in the article and tells us which of these occurences we should use as a reference point
"We have already had two cycles in recorded history; the Roman warming (200 B.C. to 600 A.D.) which was a very prosperous period, and the medieval warming (900 to 1300) during which farms were created in Greenland and Iceland. The modern warming period began about 1850".
This article also ignores the evidence for the impact on the natural cycle of growing carbon dioxide trapped in the atmosphere, and the impacts of industralisation and over population.
I therefore think the NCPA loses it's non partisan credentials | | Question/Answer | | labman asked on 11/16/06 - Does anybody else find this ludicrous? Do you think Israel would quit threatening them if they declared Israel had the right to exist and had no intention of attacking Isreal or helping others to?
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iran, whose president has vowed to wipe Israel off the map, complained to the United Nations on Wednesday that the Jewish state was repeatedly threatening to bomb it.
The threats were "matters of extreme gravity" and the U.N. Security Council should condemn them and demand that Israel "cease and desist immediately from the threat of the use of force against members of the United Nations," Iranian U.N. Ambassador Javad Zarif said.
His comments, which came in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan dated November 10 and circulated at the United Nations on Wednesday, prompted a quick rejoinder from John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
"I would say this is perhaps an example of the Iranians trying to learn 'chutzpah,"' Bolton told reporters, using a Yiddish word for unmitigated gall or outrageously arrogant behavior.
Fool story at http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061115/ts_nm/iran_israel_un_dc_2 paraclete answered on 11/16/06:no it is called diplomacy | | Question/Answer | | arcura asked on 11/13/06 - Have you seen the movie "United 93"? This guy, no ... Subject: Pilot's blog Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 16:31:32 +0000
This is the response from a retired Delta pilot in response to questions about whether he was planning to see "United 93."
I haven't seen the movie, yet, but I intend to when I get the chance. Retirement has made me busier than ever, and I haven't had the chance to see many movies lately.
As a Delta B-767 captain myself at the time of the attacks on 9/11 I was in crew rest in Orlando that morning. I had just turned on the TV in my hotel room only to see the World Trade Center tower on fire, and then saw the second airplane hit the other tower. My immediate reaction was
"Terrorists...we're at war", followed by the realization that we airline crew-members had all dodged a bullet; it could have bee any one of us flying those planes. As soon as the news stations flashed the first pictures of the terrorists I knew just how close and personal the bullet I dodged was. There, on the screen for all to see, was a man who had sat in my jump seat the previous July. His name was Mohammad Atta, the leader of the terrorist hijackers.
Atta had boarded my flight from Baltimore to Atlanta on July 26, 2001 wearing an American Airlines first officer uniform. He had he corresponding AA company ID identifying him as a pilot, not to mention the required FAA pilot license and medical certificate that he was required to how me as proof of his aircrew status for access to my jump seat.
An airline pilot riding a cockpit jump seat is a long established protocol among the airlines of the world, a courtesy extended by the management and captains of one airline to pilots and flight attendants of other airlines in recognition of their aircrew status. My admission of Mohammad Atta to my cockpit jumpseat that day was merely a routine exercise of this protocol.
Something seemed a bit different about this jumpseat rider, though, because in my usual course of conversation with him as we reached cruise altitude he avoided all my questions about his personal life and focused very intently upon the cockpit instruments and our operation of the aircraft. I asked him what he flew at American and he said, "These", but he asked incessant questions about how we did this or why we did that. I said, "This is a 767. They all operate the same way." But he said, "No, we operate them differently at American." That seemed very strange, because I knew better. I asked him about his background, and he admitted he was from Saudi Arabia. I asked him when he came over to this country and he said "A couple of years ago." to which I asked, "Are you a US citizen? He said no.
I also found that very strange because I know that in order to have an Airline Transport Pilot rating, the rating required to be an airline captain, one has to be a US citizen, and knowing the US airlines and their hiring processes as I do, I found it hard to believe that American Airlines would hire a non-US citizen who couldn't upgrade to captain when the time came. He said, "The rules have changed." which I also knew to be untrue. Besides, he was just, shall I say, "Creepy"? My copilot and I were both glad to get rid of this guy when we got to Atlanta.
There was nothing to indicate, though, that he was anything other than who or what he said he was, because he had the documentation to prove who he was. In retrospect, we now know his uniform was stolen and his documents were forged. Information later came to light as to how this was done.
It seems that Mohammad Atta and his cronies had possibly stolen pilot uniforms and credentials from hotel rooms during the previous year.
We had many security alerts at the airline to watch out for our personal items in hotel rooms because these were mysteriously disappearing, but nobody knew why. Atta and his men used these to make dry runs prior to their actual hijackings on 9/11. How do I know? I called the FBI as soon as I saw his face on the TV that day, and the agent on the other end of the line took my information and told me I'd hear back from them when all the dust settled. A few weeks later I got a letter from the Bureau saying that my call was one of at least half a dozen calls that day from other pilots who had had the same experience. Flights were being selected at random to make test runs for accessing the cockpit. It seems we had all dodged bullets.
Over the years my attitude towards the War Against Terrorism and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been known to be on the red neck, warmongering, rah-rah-shoot-em-up side of things. I've been known to lose my patience with those who say the war in Iraq or anywhere else in the Muslim world is wrong, or who say we shouldn't become involved in that area of the world for political correctness reasons. Maybe it's because I dodged the bullet so closely back in 2001 that I feel this way. I have very little patience for political rhetoric or debate against this war because for a couple of hours back in July 2001, when I was engaged in conversation with a major perpetrator in this war, I came so close to being one of its victims that I can think in no other terms.
I don't mind admitting that one of the reasons I retired early from Delta last May, other than to protect my disappearing company retirement, was because it became harder and harder for me to go to work every day knowing that the war wasn't being taken seriously by the general public.
The worst offenders were the Liberal detractors to the present administration, and right or wrong, this administration is at least taking the bull by the horns and fighting our enemies, which is something concrete that I can appreciate. Nobody was taking this war seriously, and it seems everyone found fault with the US government rather than with those who attacked us. I found that ncomprehensible.
I also found myself being scrutinized by TSA screeners more and more every day when I went to work, and suffered the humiliating indignity of being identified about half the time for body searches in front of the general flying public who looked at the entire process as being ludicrous. "They don't even trust their own pilots!" accompanied by an unbelieving snicker was the usual response. Here I was, a retired USAF officer who had been entrusted to fly nuclear weapons around the world, who had been granted a Top Secret clearance and had been on missions over the course of 21 years in the military that I still can't talk about without fear of prosecution by the DoD, who was being scanned by a flunky TSA screener looking for any sign of a pen knife or nail file on my person.
It wasn't until six months after my retirement when my wife and I flew to Key West, FL last November that I was finally able to rid myself of the visage of Mohammad Atta sitting behind me on my jumpseat, watching my every action in the cockpit and willing to slit my throat at the slightest provocation. I missed being a headline by a mere 47 days, and could very well have been among the aircrew casualties on 9/11 had one of my flights on my monthly schedule been a transcontinental flight from Boston or New York to the west coast on the 11th of September. Very few people know that, while only four airliners crashed that day, four more were targeted, and two of them were Delta flights. The only reason these four weren't involved is because they either had minor maintenance problems which delayed them at the gate or they were scheduled to depart after the FAA decided to ground all flights. Theirs are the pilots and flight attendants who REALLY dodged the bullet that day, and my faith in a higher power is restored as a result.
I will see United 93 when I get the chance, and I will probably enjoy the movie for its realness and historical significance, but forgive me if I do not embrace the Muslim world for the rest of my life. The Islamic world is no friend of the West, and although we may be able to get along with their governments in the future, the stated goal of Islam is world conquest through Jihad and it is the extremist Jihadists, backed and funded by "friendly" Muslim governments, whom we have to fear the most. We must have a presence in the Middle East, and we must have friends in the Middle East, even if we have to fight wars to get them. Only someone who has dodged a bullet can fully appreciate that fact.
Best to all, Pat Gilmore
Editor's Note: For some reason which is beyond me, some people do not want to believe this. Perhaps they do not want to believe that Jihadist terrorism actually exists, because it someone doesn't believe it yet, they never will. Capt. Gilmore himself posted this comment, in our comments below, but I will put it here for all to see:
I assure you this letter is true. As to the fact that I wrote that a holder of an Airline Transport Pi lot&nb sp;rating (ATP) must be a US citizen, I admit that I was mistaken here. I had always assumed so, because that's what I had heard, so I looked up the requirements for an ATP just now.
There is nothing that says that US citizenship is required. Okay, I'll bite the bullet on that one. I received my ATP back in 1975 and now that I think of it I do not remember having to prove my citizenship.
However, the rest of the story is true. As for my airline career, I worked for Western Airlines (who merged with Delta in 1987), Jet America Airlines (who was bought by Alaska Airlines in 1988), and Delta Airlines, as well as a few "fly by night" cargo airlines during my furlough period from Western from 1981 - 1985. I also flew in Vietnam as a transport pilot and retired from the USAF Reserve in 1991 after the Gulf War. I have 21,500+ flight hours in T-41, T-37, T-38, C-141/L-300, CE-500, CV-440, MD-80/82, B-727, B-737, B-757, and B-767 aircraft, all logged between 1970 and 2005 when I retired from Delta.
Trust me, folks, this was real. I must admit I am quite surprised that my letter made it this far on the internet. The letter was nothing more than an innocent reply to a group of friends, one of whom sent me a similar letter from another Delta pilot who had been flying the morning of 9/11 and who had experienced the flying that day for himself. His letter had detailed his thoughts as he viewed the movie "United 93", and he also told in detail how he had been diverted to Knoxville when the FAA shut down the airspace. My friend had asked me if I had known of any other similar experiences, so I wrote him what I had encountered myself a few months before. This was my letter to him.
Another retired Delta captain contacted me yesterday after reading this blog and related an experience his wife had on a flight from Portland, OR to Atlanta in August 2001, just a week or so after my experience with Atta. She was riding on a company pass and seated in First Class. A person of Middle Eastern" descent had sought permission to sit on the cockpit jumpseat, but was denied access by the captain because he did not have an FAA Medical certificate. She said he ranted and raved because he couldn't ride the cockpit jump seat, even though there were three empty seats in First Class, which the captain offered him. What pilot in his right mind would refuse a Fir st Class seat over a cramped cockpit jump seat? He stormed off the aircraft and they left him at the gate. You see, mine wasn't the only experience leading up to 9/11.
Delta Airlines Corporate Security even contacted me a few days ago to ask if I had, indeed written this letter. I wrote them back that I had.
They were worried that someone was using my name without my knowledge. I assured them I was the author.
Keep the faith, and don't let the bastards get you down.
Pat Gilmore paraclete answered on 11/13/06:no Fred and probally won't bother unless it pops up on television | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 11/10/06 - What a coward! v
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(in other words, see previous question on board) paraclete answered on 11/11/06:I agree, that was a cowardly post | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 11/06/06 - Advertising vs. Ethics
Hello:
I’m old, so I think new stuff stinks. Ceptin the new stuff I like.
There was a time when lawyers didn’t advertise. I think it was better then. There was also a time when pharmaceutical companies didn’t advertise. I also think it was better then. Additionally, there was a time when hard liquor companies didn’t advertise. I think it was better then. Finally, there was a time when doctors didn’t advertise. And yes, I think it was better then.
These industries didn’t take advantage of advertising because they were forbidden to, no. They didn’t advertise because of ethical concerns. I think they thought, that these particular services or products should be sought out by a patron, rather than “sold” to him.
Why did executives of these industries think that way? Were they right?
I think they thought, that if they advertise, there will be an explosion of their services and products – much of it un-needed. I think they were right.
Wouldn't it be better if these industries chose, on their own, to revert back to ethical standards they once held? If they don't, do we, as a nation, have a right to decide how businesses like these, that have national implications, are run?
Is there a time when we should consider oil to be one of these industries?
excon
paraclete answered on 11/07/06:Hey ex why not attack advertising where it is doing some damage, like fast food, SUV's, investment brokers.
we would all be better off without advertising, we might actually get to watch a movie on television without wall to wall ads every five minutes | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 11/07/06 - SHOULD I VOTE?
Since there's been so much corruption on all levels of government and corporations, why should I vote? This has been going on since the days of Al Capone. A virgin in politics will eventually turn into a gnome after he/she is in office a year or so. De-ja-vu anyone? Don't politicians have the ability to change their colors, their long sticky tongues, and their eyes which can be moved independently of each other? Doesn't this make a politician two-eyed? How about saying one thing and doing another? Why should I vote?
Your HONEST opinion, please!
HANK
paraclete answered on 11/07/06:Of course you should vote, how else is democracy to operate. If everyone thought like this what sort of government would you get, one as apathetic as yourself | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 11/07/06 - I propose a trade We will send all the Dipsy Chix to Australia for Beccy Cole .
Whilst Beccy is winding up her involvement as an ambassador for this year's Jamm for Genes, a cause she has thoroughly enjoyed being involved with, the song which she penned on her return to Australia after spending last Christmas and New Year in the Middle East entertaining the Australian troops and International Alllied Forces has now topped the Country Music Radio Charts. The video for this song also hit the #1 spot on the Country Music Channel recently and the song has received very strong airplay on radio across Australia.
"When I returned from the Middle East earlier this year, I felt so proud of the Australian troops I had met. I was extremely inspired by these hard working and enthusiastic young Australians and I wanted to write a song that would pay tribute to them. I'm delighted that Poster Girl has reached the number one position, I hope I've been able to spread the pride"
Poster Girl lyrics :
You won’t listen to my songs anymore
You ripped my poster off the wall
‘Cause I’m the singer that went to the war
You see no good in me at all
Well pardon me if I believe
I haven’t got it wrong
And before you turn your back on me
I’ll sing you one more song
‘Cause I shook hands with a digger
on the wrong side of the world
With a wife at home who holds her breath
and brand new baby girl
And the digger fights for freedom
in a job that must be done
And I let go of his hand
so proud to be Australian
And if unlike me you feel no pride at all
Then go ahead and take me off your wall
’cause I prefer to be a poster girl
on the wrong side of the world
And I’m just the girl who sings the crazy songs
not qualified to sit and judge
I’ve been right and I know I’ve been wrong
But I’m for peace and I’m for love
And I admire the burning fire
that causes you to fight
I only wish the wrong side of the world
had the same right.
’cause I listened to the wisdom
of the Aussie Brigadier
He spoke of widows and of orphans
and the need to dry their tears
And he leads the fight for freedom
in a job that must be done
And I’ve never be more proud
to say that I’m Australian
And if unlike me you feel no pride at all
Then go ahead and take me off your wall
’cause I prefer to be a poster girl
on the wrong side of the world
Maybe I’m naive to think we all could get along
But sir I read your words and all I ask
is hear my song…
I shook hands with a digger
on the wrong side of the world
With a wife at home who holds her breath
and brand new baby girl
And the digger fights for freedom
in a job that must be done
And I’ve never be more proud
to say that I’m Australian
And if unlike me you feel no pride at all
Then go ahead and take me off your wall
’cause I prefer to be a poster girl
on the wrong side of the world
I’m so proud to be a poster girl
on the wrong side of the world
...................................................
you go girl !!!!
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paraclete answered on 11/07/06:Some people actually come to understand the difference in the approach between australians and americans. The australian first response is not to shoot anyone but to understand the country they are in belongs to someoneelse, so they establish good relationships with the locals and incidents are rare. But we don't want any more yanks here thanks, just as we don't want any more Muslim troublemakers | | Question/Answer | | Choux... asked on 11/05/06 - 1999 WAR GAMES PREDICTED LOSS IN WAR ON IRAQ By John Heilprin, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — "The U.S. government conducted a series of secret war games in 1999 that anticipated an invasion of Iraq would require 400,000 troops, and even then chaos might ensue.
In its "Desert Crossing" games, 70 military, diplomatic and intelligence officials assumed the high troop levels would be needed to keep order, seal borders and take care of other security needs.
The documents came to light Saturday through a Freedom of Information Act request by the George Washington University's National Security Archive, an independent research institute and library.
"The conventional wisdom is the U.S. mistake in Iraq was not enough troops," said Thomas Blanton, the archive's director. "But the Desert Crossing war game in 1999 suggests we would have ended up with a failed state even with 400,000 troops on the ground."....
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Very troubling information in view of Bush's War of Adventurism on Iraq. paraclete answered on 11/05/06:Troubling but not suprising afterall it was a game and everyone looses on the first attempt | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 11/05/06 - Strange Diseases
Hello:
I wondered about the "disease" caused by Agent Orange. Of course, Agent Orange WAS a real poison. Gulf War syndrome caused me some concern. Now, there's this unknown disease that the rescuers from 9/11 are suffering from.
Do you think these are real diseases, or just ways to cash in?
excon
paraclete answered on 11/05/06:Come on ex, you know there is no such thing as battle fatigue, gulf war syndrome, or any one of a dozen descriptions of that wimpish disease that besets all people who come into contact with trauma. They are just cowards on the make, right, of course right. Well ex, you are wrong if you think that, the military doesn't care if you get sick, just that you get the job done and the same goes for the Fire and Police Departments. If your ears ring forever or your gut wrenches at the thought of it, so what. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 11/03/06 - what am I missing ? The NY Slimes today is reporting about a gvt. web site that was set up in March that links to Iraqi documents that proved that Iraq had a nuclear program .
Some nuclear experts started to complain that the information in the documents could conceivably aid Tehran in their nuclear program . So knowing that the gvt. shut the site down.
Now by all accounts ,Iran is a matter of months away from finishing the development phase of their nuclear program .If Tehran could benefit from reading these Iraqi documents then doesn't it stand to reason that Iraq's program was further along than we thought ?
What is the Slimes saying ? The stuff that Bush lied about and really didn't exist is too dangerous to post ? After years of claiming Sadaam had no WMD, the Slimes now claims that posting the evidence that that Iraq was close to making an A bomb is and dangerous.
In their effort to discredit the Republicans in the final weekend before the election they have just refuted one of the most lingering talking points of the moonbats . Way to go NY Slimes . You just did a Kerry !!! Go sip on some more mint tea with Joe Wilson you morons !
paraclete answered on 11/03/06:Yes, Yes, we know they had a nuclear program, every despot in the world has a nuclear program, we know they had WMD, probally insecticide but WMD never the less, but these are matters of history, so on a slow news day, they get trotted out again. Perhaps Iran wanted to know what has been common knowledge for fifty years, but there is a difference between knowledge and action as was so ably demonstrated by George Bush. | | Question/Answer | | Choux... asked on 11/03/06 - Sen Joe Biden's Plan Labperson said that the Democrats have no plan to end the war in Iraq. What follows is Senator Joe Biden's Five Point Plan. (In addition, Senator Murtha has a plan).
• Establish three regions in Iraq -- one each for Shiite Muslims, Sunni Muslims and Kurds -- all governed by a central Baghdad-based government.
• Provide the Sunni region with a 20 percent share of oil revenues, giving the Sunnis more resources than they would otherwise have and strengthening their interest in a stable Iraq. Increased stability, in turn, would attract more foreign investment, he said, which also would benefit Shiites and Kurds.
• Tie increased U.S. reconstruction assistance to the protection of rights for minorities and women.
• Propose a regional security conference, convened by the United Nations, that would draw a pledge from Iraq's neighbors to respect its boundaries and work cooperatively.
• Withdraw most U.S. troops by 2008, leaving a force of about 20,000 to help maintain security.
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I don't necessarily support Biden's plan.
Have a lovely evening, Choux paraclete answered on 11/03/06:at least it's a plan and a plan of disengagement, the first constructive suggestion we have seen out of the US in a long time, now why hasn't Bush got advisers like this? | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 11/01/06 - Rastlin
Hello:
Let’s say you wrestle on a tag team.
After he knocked the first opponent down, your partner went to the corner and kicked the other guy in the nuts. After he went down, your partner started parading around the ring yelling, mission accomplished.
Well, the other two guys recovered and pounced on your partner. They’re beating the livin daylights out of him. In between punches, he manages to look in your direction, and your eye’s meet. Slowly, as he’s being beaten, he mouths the question, “what’s your plan?”.
Me? I'd keep following his lead. You?
excon
paraclete answered on 11/02/06:so your solution is to knock the two opponents down and have a parade.
Let's look at Bush in this context. He knocked down one opponent and had a parade. Just because he had had a succesful match the previous year (v Talaban+Al Qaeda) meant nothing, so what happened, the other tag came up from behind, kicked him in the groin and king hit him with a fore arm jolt to the back of the head. But let's ask ourselves who is the cowardly tag partner who hasn't had a go yet, could it be Cheney or could it be Maliki.
As to a plan, my plan would be to tag my partner and let him take some of the punishment after all a successful tag match relies on changing over quickly and often while kicking the .... out of your opponent | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 11/01/06 - 9/11
Hello:
Did 9/11 scare you personally? Do you fear for your safety, or your family's safety?
excon
paraclete answered on 11/01/06:no ex it didn't cause concerns for my personal safety but I found it very disturbing in other ways. It was a pivotal point in history, a breaking in trust perhaps | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 10/31/06 - KERRY, THE FOOL!
Kerry laid an egg yesterday when he spoke about education. Bottom-line: He said something like if you're not educated, you'll end up in Iraq. Boy, that guy is a piece of work.
Any comment?
HANK
paraclete answered on 11/01/06:That's the criteria for army recruitment is it, lack of education? no wonder americans have problems in Iraq | | Question/Answer | | arcura asked on 10/31/06 - Is there any GOOD news about progress in Iraq? Watch this video.
http://www.glennbeck.com/realstory/iraq-video.shtml paraclete answered on 10/31/06:don't need to watch your video to know there is little good news from Iraq just more death, destruction, mayhem | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 10/30/06 - Why the Democrats cannot be trusted to run our foreigh policy The Democrats are loaded with people who have no clue about foreign policy .There are leaders of the party like Jack Murky Murtha who's brilliant plan for Iraq is to redeploy to Okinawa where our troops will be supposedly in a position to rapidly respond to events in the M.E.
Can he or someone like Harold Ford Jr really be trusted to make foreign policy decisions ? Harold Ford Jr. ;why single him out ?
Well because recent comments he has made have proven to me that he is unqualified to be a Senator .(the Aussies on the board will love this one )
Australia 'a nuclear threat'
By Geoff Elliott October 28, 2006 12:00am Article from: The Australian
Harold Ford, a handsome 36-year-old from Tennessee, has become one of the sensations of the mid-term elections in the US and a reason why Democrats are a good chance of winning back control of the US Congress for the first time in 12 years. But if Mr Ford, already a US congressman, wins his bid to become a more powerful senator, Australia had better watch out. Because according to Mr Ford, Australia has an interest in nuclear weapons and is part of the broader nuclear threat to the US.
He was speaking of the risk of nuclear proliferation which as we know has grown in the last decade. The article continues :
Yesterday he stumbled into gaffes on the North Korean nuclear tests and then mentioned Australia in the same breath as rogue nations wanting to go nuclear.......On North Korea, he claimed Pyongyang had conducted two nuclear tests, the first of which he said occurred on July 4. This confuses the ballistic tests Pyongyang carried out on that date with the single nuclear test earlier this month.
[He also erroneuosly mentions South Africa as desiring nukes .That was true during the apartheid regime but not since majority rule. He may be suprised to learn that they voluntarily gave up their program ;as did Australia ]
When the Aussie reporter attempted to get clarification Ford's handlers refused to allow it.
"You don't win us any votes," said his spokeswoman. And she might have added that it also means he is insulated from pesky questions probing his limitations on enunciating a foreign policy involving a trusted ally.
Now if asked ,Paraclete and Mathmacoat will tell you that Australia is and has been more than capable to build a nuke since the 1950s .Following World War II, Australian defence policy initiated joint nuclear weapons development with the United Kingdom. Australia provided uranium, land for weapons and rocket tests, and scientific and engineering expertise. Canberra was also heavily involved in the Blue Streak ballistic missile program. In 1955, a contract was signed with a British company to build the Hi-Flux Australian Reactor (HIFAR). HIFAR was considered the first step toward the construction of larger reactors capable of producing substantial volumes of plutonium for nuclear weapons. However, Australia's nuclear ambitions were abandoned by the 1960s, and the country signed the NPT in 1970 (ratified in 1973).
Australia has 30% of the world known uranium deposits and one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world .I would shudder to ever think of them as a security threat to the US or a rogue nation.
Fortunately for us ,Australia is one of our best allies and someone who aspires to be a Senator of the United States should know that.Australians know that Australia since attaining independence in 1901 has always been America's absolute loyal ally .If I was an Australian I would not look kindly to an American who has aspirations of leadership placing an equivalency between them and a dispicable criminal rouge State run by Kim Jong Il . Australia is in fact the only nation post WWII that has actively supported the US in every major military initiative . It even sent troops to Vietnam (England never did ).Post 9-11 John Howard declared ""This is no time to be an 80% ally!" and he has backed up his words .It was Australia and India that assisted us in the Tsunami relief effort that rushed to the scene long before the UN managed to get boots on the ground . I guess that in Ford Jr's mind Australia is just another Bush poodle.
Certainly he should know before he speaks that Australia abandoned it's nuclear program long before it became fashionable to do so. Australia today does not even have a nuclear-power generating capacity. It has just one nuclear reactor, which is used exclusively for scientific research. (There is a growing debate in the country however over the need to build nukes for power generation .)
Certainly a gaffe such as what came out of the Senate-wanna be is something that the national press should've been quick to point out .They certainly would've seized the opportunity if President Bush had said something simular Did you see it on 'ABC World News' or 'Meet the Press 'or did Ford Jr. the 'dumbest man alive " during the Keith Olberman countdown ? I didn't.
paraclete answered on 10/30/06:Let me put it this way Tom, what is about your nation that breeds these people with peculiar extremist views. Doesn't he already know that Australia is more an economic threat than a nuclear one, why Australians have already infiltrated and headed some of your iconic organisations. I speak of course of Fox, Ford and so on. Doesn't this dude know you may not have had atomic weapons without the Australian ingenuity of Oppenheimer. You are lucky we are a peaceful people who recognise that democracy has an important role.
I think it is logical that Australia will build nuclear reactors and even enrichment technology, if only to remove the environmental pariah tag it will have because of it's coal industry and the need to stop nuclear proliferation.
We only do things here because it's necessary, not just because we can | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 10/25/06 - Early Happy Halloween Got a Blue Mountain e-card in the mail . Thought you would enjoy it .
The Flasher paraclete answered on 10/25/06:yes I be frightened too, (if I were you) | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 10/24/06 - Are we in trouble???
Hello wingers:
Karl Rove is very good at politics, because he knows how to reduce politics down to a few words, and then he hammers them. It works.
However, Rove is not very good at governing, because you can’t reduce governing down to a few words like “stay the course”, or “cut and run”. It doesn’t work.
Iraq is a failure. Even O’Reilly said it last night. He used the word “lost”. Its, lab, Wolverine, tom, you guys know it too. Yes, we shouldn’t have gone in. But, once we were there, we could have won. We absolutely could have.
Now, all those terrible things that you said would happen if we leave Iraq, are gonna happen because we are gonna leave Iraq.
Did the failure happen because of the media? Or did it happen because the war wasn’t prosecuted properly? Who is to blame - the NY Times, or Bush?
excon
paraclete answered on 10/24/06:George W Bush, he reflects that other George of whom it is said "all the Kings horses............. | | Question/Answer | | CeeBee2 asked on 10/24/06 - Is this why we're in Iraq? A good reason?
or, if the link doesn't work --
http://alternet.org/story/43045/
paraclete answered on 10/24/06:I have said all along Iraq was about oil, there is nothing new here just business as usual for oil man George Bush | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 10/22/06 - Iraqi Casualities Oct. 20 — The United Nations office in Baghdad says that Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, has ordered the country’s medical authorities to stop providing the organization with monthly figures on the number of civilians killed and wounded in the conflict there, according to a confidential cable.
The cable, dated Oct. 17 and sent to United Nations officials in New York and Geneva by Ashraf Qazi, the United Nations envoy to Iraq, says the prohibition may hinder the ability of his office to give accurate accounts in its bimonthly human rights reports on the levels of violence and the effect on Iraqi society.
Concern over the numbers of civilians who have died in Iraq has risen sharply at a time when organized attacks by insurgents are swelling the numbers of victims and when a new report from a team of Iraqi and American researchers shows that more than 600,000 civilians have died in violence across Iraq since the 2003 American invasion.
Mr. Qazi, a former Pakistani diplomat, says that the order to let the prime minister’s office take over the release of the numbers came down a day after a United Nations report for July and August showed a serious upward spike in the number of dead and wounded. The leader of the Health Ministry in Iraq appealed to be allowed to continue supplying the figures to the United Nations but was turned down according to a subsequent letter from the prime minister’s office, Mr. Qazi’s cable said.
The existence of the cable was reported Friday by The Washington Post.
Feisal al-Istrabadi, Iraq’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, said he had not seen the cable and therefore could not comment on its specifics. “But what I can say is what the prime minister is aiming for is to have one voice reflecting accurate information about the statistics of those who are dying every day,” he said. “So, the concern was that the Ministry of Health, which has had accurate figures to date, be the official source of the information.
“It is trying to avoid a situation where different agencies, which may have different perspectives, put out sets of numbers that are, in fact, not as accurate as they should be.”
The most recent United Nations report, published in September, showed that 3,590 people were killed in July and 3,009 in August in violence across the country. Compiled by statistics from Baghdad’s central morgue and from hospitals and morgues countrywide, the report posited an average death rate of 97 people per day.
The United Nations reports have been cited by independent researchers as reliable indicators of the incidence of violence in Iraq and were not disputed by the Iraqi government until the September report that showed sharp rises in the figures.
In his cable, Mr. Qazi described a process by which his office tried to compile the most reliable statistics.
He said that initially his office had been able to overcome Iraqi government reluctance to release figures by obtaining statistics from the Health Ministry’s Medico-Legal Institute in Baghdad.
The institute records the number of unidentified civilians killed violently whose bodies are taken to the morgue in Baghdad, but not those killed violently whose bodies are taken to hospitals and later handed over to families for burial. Therefore, Mr. Qazi said, the institute’s figures represented only “an indicator, albeit imperfect, of the growing number of civilian victims in the capital.”
To come up with a more thorough account, Mr. Qazi said, the United Nations combined the institute’s findings with figures from the Department of Operations at the Ministry of Health, which records those killed or wounded as a result of violence from hospitals across almost all parts of the country.
Mr. Qazi noted that the figures “may have contributed to an increased international awareness regarding the severe consequences that the conflict in Iraq is having on civilians.”
The cable said that following the release of the last United Nations human rights report on Sept. 20, the prime minister’s office “expressed doubts” about its accuracy.
The next day, the Ministry of Health was told that it should no longer release its figures but instead channel them through the prime minister’s office. Mr. Qazi said he learned of this on Oct. 12.
Mr. Qazi said the United Nations would continue to seek figures from the Department of Operations at the Ministry of Health and “use our contacts to see what measure of verification may be possible.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ paraclete answered on 10/23/06:The body count is meaningless anyway unless it is the bodies of insurgents then we could have some statistics such as how many US troops die for each insurgent killed. I think that would make very interesting reading | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 10/22/06 - Iraqi Casualities Oct. 20 — The United Nations office in Baghdad says that Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, has ordered the country’s medical authorities to stop providing the organization with monthly figures on the number of civilians killed and wounded in the conflict there, according to a confidential cable.
The cable, dated Oct. 17 and sent to United Nations officials in New York and Geneva by Ashraf Qazi, the United Nations envoy to Iraq, says the prohibition may hinder the ability of his office to give accurate accounts in its bimonthly human rights reports on the levels of violence and the effect on Iraqi society.
Concern over the numbers of civilians who have died in Iraq has risen sharply at a time when organized attacks by insurgents are swelling the numbers of victims and when a new report from a team of Iraqi and American researchers shows that more than 600,000 civilians have died in violence across Iraq since the 2003 American invasion.
Mr. Qazi, a former Pakistani diplomat, says that the order to let the prime minister’s office take over the release of the numbers came down a day after a United Nations report for July and August showed a serious upward spike in the number of dead and wounded. The leader of the Health Ministry in Iraq appealed to be allowed to continue supplying the figures to the United Nations but was turned down according to a subsequent letter from the prime minister’s office, Mr. Qazi’s cable said.
The existence of the cable was reported Friday by The Washington Post.
Feisal al-Istrabadi, Iraq’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, said he had not seen the cable and therefore could not comment on its specifics. “But what I can say is what the prime minister is aiming for is to have one voice reflecting accurate information about the statistics of those who are dying every day,” he said. “So, the concern was that the Ministry of Health, which has had accurate figures to date, be the official source of the information.
“It is trying to avoid a situation where different agencies, which may have different perspectives, put out sets of numbers that are, in fact, not as accurate as they should be.”
The most recent United Nations report, published in September, showed that 3,590 people were killed in July and 3,009 in August in violence across the country. Compiled by statistics from Baghdad’s central morgue and from hospitals and morgues countrywide, the report posited an average death rate of 97 people per day.
The United Nations reports have been cited by independent researchers as reliable indicators of the incidence of violence in Iraq and were not disputed by the Iraqi government until the September report that showed sharp rises in the figures.
In his cable, Mr. Qazi described a process by which his office tried to compile the most reliable statistics.
He said that initially his office had been able to overcome Iraqi government reluctance to release figures by obtaining statistics from the Health Ministry’s Medico-Legal Institute in Baghdad.
The institute records the number of unidentified civilians killed violently whose bodies are taken to the morgue in Baghdad, but not those killed violently whose bodies are taken to hospitals and later handed over to families for burial. Therefore, Mr. Qazi said, the institute’s figures represented only “an indicator, albeit imperfect, of the growing number of civilian victims in the capital.”
To come up with a more thorough account, Mr. Qazi said, the United Nations combined the institute’s findings with figures from the Department of Operations at the Ministry of Health, which records those killed or wounded as a result of violence from hospitals across almost all parts of the country.
Mr. Qazi noted that the figures “may have contributed to an increased international awareness regarding the severe consequences that the conflict in Iraq is having on civilians.”
The cable said that following the release of the last United Nations human rights report on Sept. 20, the prime minister’s office “expressed doubts” about its accuracy.
The next day, the Ministry of Health was told that it should no longer release its figures but instead channel them through the prime minister’s office. Mr. Qazi said he learned of this on Oct. 12.
Mr. Qazi said the United Nations would continue to seek figures from the Department of Operations at the Ministry of Health and “use our contacts to see what measure of verification may be possible.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ paraclete answered on 10/23/06:The body count is meaningless anyway unless it is the bodies of insurgents then we could have some statistics such as how many US troops die for each insurgent killed. I think that would make very interesting reading | | Question/Answer | | captainoutrageous asked on 10/22/06 - Schroeder: Bush's faith raised suspicion By MELISSA EDDY, Associated Press Writer
Sat Oct 21, 7:06 PM ET
BERLIN - Ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose second term was marked by vehement opposition to the war in Iraq, described in an advance copy of his memoirs how he was suspicious of President Bush's constant references to his Christian faith.
In an excerpt of his book, "Decisions: My Life in Politics" published in the German weekly Der Spiegel Saturday, Schroeder discusses the key political choices that marked his seven-year term in office, including the decision to call early elections and his split with Bush over the Iraq war.
"I am anything but anti-American," Schroeder told Spiegel in an interview to accompany the excerpt of the more than 500-page book that goes on sale Thursday.
In it Schroeder, who led the Social Democrats to power in 1998, recalls the tears in his eyes as he watched television footage of people jumping from the burning World Trade Center on Sept. 11.
He knew Germany would have to react.
"It was important to me that Germany fulfill its requirements as an ally" of the U.S., he wrote. "It was also fully clear to me that this could also mean the German army's participation in an American military mission."
Several months later, during Bush's 2002 visit to Berlin, Schroeder wrote he was surprised at what he described as Bush's "exceptionally mild" speech to the German parliament.
While meetings with Bush at that time were friendly, Schroeder said he could not reconcile himself with the feeling that religion was the driving force behind many of Bush's political decisions.
"What bothered me, and in a certain way made me suspicious despite the relaxed atmosphere, was again and again in our discussions how much this president described himself as 'God-fearing,'" Schroeder wrote, adding he is a firm believer in the separation of church and state.
Schroeder accused some elements in U.S. as being hypocritical when it comes to secularism in government.
"We rightly criticize that in most Islamic states, the role of religion for society and the character of the rule of law are not clearly separated," Schroeder wrote. "But we fail to recognize that in the USA, the Christian fundamentalists and their interpretation of the Bible have similar tendencies."
paraclete answered on 10/23/06:There is nothing wrong with Bush making his Faith known but when he tells us he is on a mission from God, the word meglomaniac comes to mind | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 10/22/06 - Cut & Run
Hello Wrongwingers:
I finally learned what stay the course means. It means cut and run. I didn't know that. Did you?
excon
paraclete answered on 10/22/06:no ex it means keep running around in circles doing the same thing over and over again.
You know they say it is madness to keep doing the same things and expecting things to change when they don't. Could George be mad, do you think? | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 10/22/06 - TONY BLAIR: In case we find ourselves starting to believe all the anti-American
Sentiment and negativity, we should remember England's Prime
Minister Tony Blair's words during a recent interview. When asked by
One of his Parliament members why he believes so much in America, he
Said:
"A simple way to take measure of a country is to look at how many
want in... and how many want out." Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you:
1. Jesus Christ
2. The American G. I.
One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.
HANK
paraclete answered on 10/22/06:Hank, You should know better and so should Blair, Soldiers of every nation have died for their country but that doesn't put them on a par with Jesus Christ | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 10/22/06 - greetings from an endless war guy
I'm an endless war guy because I oppose strongly the probable recomendations of the James Baker ( a leading exponent of the realpolitik view, thoroughly discredited in the post-9/11 world, that the price of international stability is the appeasement of Middle Eastern dictators )and Lee Hamilton(didn't he do enough damage in the 9-11 Commission ?) "bipartisan Commission " to enlist the aid of Iran and Syria in solving the problems in Iraq.Baker has already met with representatives the Syrian government and Iranian ambassador to discuss the future of Iraq. This has reinforced my belief that his groups report instead of proposing genuinely new solutions to the Middle East, will recommend the old “realist” tack of holding direct talks with America’s declared enemies.
In the new issue of the Weekly Standard Michael Rubin previews the conclusions of the Baker-Hamilton Commission on American policy toward Iraq. Rubin suggests that our current difficulties in Iraq emanate from Iran and that the commission's anticipated recommendations will work to Iran's advantage.
Baker and Hamilton gerrymandered these advisory panels to ratify predetermined recommendations. While bipartisan, the groups are anything but representative of the policy debate. I personally withdrew from an expert working group after concluding that I was meant to contribute token diversity rather than my substantive views.
Many appointees appeared to be selected less for expertise than for their hostility to President Bush's war on terrorism and emphasis on democracy. Raad Alkadiri, for example, has repeatedly defined U.S. motivation for Iraq's liberation as a grab for oil. Raymond Close, listed on the Iraq Study Group's website as a "freelance analyst," is actually a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, which, in July 2003, called for Vice President Dick Cheney's resignation for an alleged conspiracy to distort intelligence, which they said had been uncovered by none other than Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. The following summer, Close posited that "Bush and the neocons" had fabricated the charge "that the evil Iranian mullahs inspired and instigated the radical Shia Islamist insurgency." To Close, the problem was not Iranian training and supply of money and sophisticated explosives to terrorists, but rather neoconservatism.
Other experts include a plaintiff in the January 17, 2006, lawsuit against the National Security Agency for its no-warrant wiretap program and a think-tank analyst who had not traveled beyond the Green Zone on her only trip to Iraq in September 2003, but nonetheless demonstrated her open mind by declaring the Iraq endeavor a failure in an interview with a German magazine just days before the commission's inauguration.
Baker placed Chas Freeman, his former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, on the panel, despite Freeman's assertion, in the antiwar documentary Uncovered: The War in Iraq, that the Bush administration had fabricated its justifications for war. Why seek advice from an area specialist who has clearly crossed the line from analysis to conspiracy?
Rubin anticipates the commission recommending a course of action including "engagement with Iran," a course of action that resembles what Paul refers as "a double defeat."Outsourcing the problem to our enemies would represent a double defeat -- we'd lose in Iraq and strengthen Iran immeasurably.
paraclete answered on 10/22/06:You fellows are so obseceesed with victory any outcome but your agenda is defeat. Why not see it from an Iraqi perspective, Saddam is gone, leave and let them get one with it. | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 10/19/06 - Help For NY's Bravest, Finest and Best Hello all,
As of you know, many of the cops, firefighters, rescue workers and construction crews who worked their hearts out to save lives on 9-11 and in the days that followed are now suffering from various ailments. You may also know that the city and state governments are giving these brave people, who stepped up under fire and under the most stressful conditions, nothing but trouble in getting medical benefits. They are letting down these brave men and women who put it all on the line for us.
This is, in my opinion, the worst kind of betrayal that the government can commit. Turning their backs on our men and women in and out of uniform who gave their lives to those in need is disgusting. And worse, it will mean that next time a disaster hits, those who might have stepped up to help will think twice. Honor and duty drive men and women into uniform, but keeping faith with each other and having the government keep faith with them is what KEEPS them in uniform and what keeps them going when the crap hits the fan. Now the government is breaking that faith, and the result is going to be disasterous.
So here's my idea: if the government won't keep faith with these brave men and women, then it is up to US to do so. On Monday, this nation's 300,000,000th citizen was born (there's an argument as to which of 3 babies in NY was the milestone-setter). My idea is that if each American citizen were to place $1 into a fund for these brave men and women, we could gather $300,000,000 to help those suffering from post-911 ailments. Imagine that... just $1 per person could cover all the medical expenses for all those who stepped up when America was in need. These guys stepped up for us, it's time that we step up for THEM. In this way, at little cost to ourselves, we can properly take care of and keep faith with our 9-11 heroes who are in need today. They were there for us, now its time for us to step up for them.
I have absolutely no idea how to start a not-for-profit fund of this type. But I would propose that 100% of all money collected be used for benefits, and any overhead associated with this endevour should be covered separately.
Could this work? How would we go about it? We need to keep faith with those who kept the faith for us when we were in need. Anything less is a complete failure of the moral fiber of this great nation.
If anyone has another idea, please feel free to share it.
Elliot paraclete answered on 10/20/06:Good Idea Elliot, you need to start with PR and look to interest on that money you collect to meet expenses, there will be a gap between the time funds are recieved and when they are dispensed and you sould with wise investment be able to gain significant revenue from the gap, but think about finding volunteers to help with the work to keep costs down and find a business who will support your efforts, go front up the likes of Gates and Trump, it could even be a good project for the apprentices. | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 10/19/06 - REPUBLICANS MUST BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR INCOMPETENCE "The Iraq war is one of the greatest blunders in American history. The American people already know that the human and financial cost of the war has been far too great. Nearly 2,800 Americans have been killed and we are spending nearly $250 million on each day on the war in Iraq.
Robert Greenwald's new film, Iraq for Sale, shows how the Bush Administration has been outsourcing this war to corporate America - and how that effort has been mismanaged. His film is a convincing indictment of the Administration's decision to give multi-billion dollar sweetheart deals that have lined contractor's pockets while failing to meet the basic needs of our soldiers. All Americans should be asking how the Bush Administration could have allowed contractors to fail to provide our soldiers with safe food and drinking water.
Greenwald's film adds further evidence of the Bush administration's incompetence from the start of this war and continuing to this day. We now know that they misled the American people about the pre-war intelligence and ignored the warnings from the State Department and others that Iraq was not the threat they claimed it to be. There was no smoking gun to link Iraq to the attacks on September 11th, no convincing link to Al Qaeda, and no compelling evidence that Iraq was close to building a nuclear bomb.
The American people know that the Bush Administration has been dangerously incompetent in the conduct of the war. They sent far too few troops into Iraq, contrary to the recommendations of key military leaders, and spread them far too thin. Without sufficient troops, we were unable to stop the looting or protect the stores of enemy munitions.
They sent the troops into battle year after year without adequate armor to protect them against roadside bombs made from the same explosives that we failed to protect, which have been the leading cause of death of our brave soldiers. They disbanded the Iraqi military, and then waited a year to begin training a new security force.
Sadly, the Republicans in Congress have been complicit in this incompetence and mismanagement. They have failed to exercise their oversight responsibilities and demand better for our men and women in uniform. The Republicans must be held accountable for their incompetence. But in November, the American people have a chance to make a change and put an end to these back-room deals. Greenwald's film is a poignant reminder of why this election is so important and why America needs a new course and a new direction in Iraq". Senator Ted Kennedy DMass
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ paraclete answered on 10/19/06:what's this, a revolution? Holding a politician accountable. Now that's an idea with much merit but little hope of success | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 10/19/06 - Rules vs People
Hello:
I finally figured out WHY people join one party or the other. I get, that all of us want pretty much the same thing.
However, Republicans think the problems are caused because we haven’t written the rules exactly right, and the Democrats think the problems aren’t the rules, but whether people will obey them.
That’s why people like the Wolverine who, even though he disagrees with a law, will obey it absolutely, because it’s written. Then there are guy’s like me, who question the morality of the law, and make decisions to obey or not, based on that.
Neither position works for us as a country.
I had a business partner who was designing a job for an underling. As designed, the job had no redeeming qualities, and couldn’t produce any satisfaction for the worker. I said, “if the job isn’t satisfying, we’ll have trouble filling it.” My partner said, “what’s that got to do with it? Here’s the job. Here’s the pay. Do it.” He's a Republican.
Republicans think that all they have to do is write a law, and their work is done. People WILL obey, because they wrote it. Democrats worry so much about how a law will be perceived that they don’t write laws that matter.
Maybe the solution is, that we have enough laws right now, and they should take a vacation.
excon
paraclete answered on 10/19/06:ex this problem has been long observed in business and the answer is empowerment. That's not a word politicians like to hear because there is no political quodos when you arn't part of the solution of the problem, particularly when the problem is solved before you know there is a problem.
What you don't need is more law, you need to empower the people to fulfill the law. How does this work. Well instead of pork barrelling local projects, you empower the local government to fix the problem within a budget without any other approvals. You need a new dam, build it, a new highway, build it, a new bridge, build it. The bureauracrats hate it, the politicians are in dismay but it's power to the people. The Auditors shout; accountability, the accountants; cost, the lawyers; liability, the political opponents; waste but in the end the waste of the political process is eliminated and things are done more economically and much more democratically | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 10/19/06 - The Darkest of day's are upon us.
Hello rightless people:
To continue regarding our discussion about your rights that were stolen from you like, a thief in the night. Unbelievably, I’m the only one who noticed.
You say that the recent tribunal law only applies to aliens, that it DOESN’T apply to Americans. To that, I say, BUNK!
As it stands now, the president or his secretary of defense or their designates, can declare YOU to be an enemy combatant, and wisk you off to some CIA prison in Budapest.
Yes, you are an American held illegally. But, without the right to challenge your imprisonment (habeas corpus), who are you gonna complain to?
As it stands NOW, we are at the mercy of the president. I know, I know, you say we can trust him. To that, I say BUNK!
Previous to the dark day that just passed, we didn’t HAVE to trust him. We didn’t remain free because he’s a benevolent guy. We remained free because we HAD rights. Now we don’t!
Tell me I’m wrong. But I am NOT.
excon
paraclete answered on 10/19/06:ah the Illusion of freedom and democracy | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 10/17/06 - I'm BAAAAAaaaaaack!!! Been on vacation for the past 10 days. Now I come back, and look at how the fecal matter has connected with the rotary air impellers. (Translation: "how the $h!t has hit the fan".)
1) Harry Reid, the guy who was all over the MSM when the Abramoff story broke turns out to be one of the better examples of political corruption after all. How many different "questionable" items have come to light now about his political finances? 10? 12? I've lost count.
2) Treason has become punishable by 2 1/2 years in prison. I've seen J-walkers get more time than Lynne Stewart will serve. And the wench is actually going to appeal her sentence to try to get her law-license back. So to all who say that terrorism has to be handled by the criminal-justice system rather than the military system, I give you Lynne Stewart. Screw that: just line the scumbags up against a wall, tie electrodes to their privates, and throw the switch. Then when you have drained then of all the information they have, shoot them behind the ear and bury them in unmarked graves. Because the criminal-justice system is clearly not designed to deal with terrorists.
3) It turns out that Bush was right again... when he named the Axis of Evil, he was right on the money. The biggest threats to Democracy in 2002 were indeed Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
For those who argue that Bush invaded the "wrong country at the wrong time", and that by eliminating the Hussein regime we "empowered" Iran, I say BS. If we had instead invaded Iran and eliminated the Iranian Mullocracy, those same people would be arguing that Saddam was the real threat, and we had empowered Iraq. And if we had instead invaded North Korea, people would have argued that we were ignoring the "real" threats of Iran and Iraq and "empowering" South Korea. Well guess what: no matter what we had done, a power vacuum would have developed, and SOMEONE would have stepped up to fill that vacuum just as Ahmadinejad has done in Iran. That is the nature of power... whoever is able to do so grabs as much as he is able, and Ahmadinejad has just been the most vocal grabber to date in the Middle East, and Kim Jong Il has been the power-grabbing guy in Asia. It could just as easily have been any other leader. And so the argument that "Bush's ineptness and lack of forward-thinking destabilized the region" is pure BS. The region is perpetually unstable, power-grabs are the norm, and the only way to deal with them is to have the stronger military and the cojones to use it. Ahmadinejad and Jong Il are betting that the American people don't have the cojones. And if the Dems win Congress, they'll be right.
4) The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit several new highs, the unemployment rate hit new lows, and the economy is chugging along quite comfortably. The media has completely ignored this. They have played up the national debt, but they've ignored every other economic indicator in existence. Again. Or is that "still"?
5) The MSM has played up the Foley-Page scandal, but has essentially ignored the Harry Reid scandals (plural). They have called for everyone and their best friend who had any connection to Foley in the past 20 years to be strung up by their testicles. This is the same MSM that has repeatedly defended Clinton fo having sex with an underage intern in the Oval Office.
This is also the same MSM that has largly ignored the fact that former Rep. Gerry Studds (D-MA) who died this weekend was a child molestor who actually had sex with several Pages while in office (as opposed to just e-mailing and IMing them about sex). They lionized him as a gay-rights activist who was Congress' first openly gay member, but ignored the fact that he lured underage Congressional Pages into having sex with him.
Yeah, I'm back and better than ever... and more pissed off at the stupidity and hypocracy of the left than ever before.
Alright, libs... come and get some.
Elliot paraclete answered on 10/19/06:what can we expect from you then, a fresh perspective I hope. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 10/18/06 - Humanitarian war? Is 'humanitarian war' ever justified?
Is it just a myth?
In The Doctrine of Humanitarian War, Karel Glastra van Loon and Jan Marijnissen argue that in "rightful wars" such as Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and presumably Iraq:
The negative consequences of these "rightful wars" threaten to become bigger than the positive effects that provided the pretext for action in the first place. The international legal order has become international disorder.
In a Washington Post article, Eric A. Posner argues:
The problem with humanitarian intervention is not only that the costs are usually too high, but it turns out that the benefits usually are low.
What cost is too high? How do we know we've reached it? If a "humanitarian war" provides us with no benefit should it be undertaken, or is there ever a time when someone just has to try and do what's right regardless of the consequences?
Van Loon and Marijnissen close with:
Militarism is not the solution, but it is one of the main reasons for growing insecurity in the world. As long as this truth is denied, real solutions will stay hidden beyond the horizon.
What are the "real solutions?"paraclete answered on 10/19/06:There is no such thing as as a humanitarian war, the concepts of being hunamitarian and war are diametrically opposed. What you are really saying is the end justifies the means, such as a war should be fought to liberate the staving people of North Korea or a war should be fought to liberate the religiously oppressed people of Iran. Violence begets violence.
If the people of North Korea or Iran don't see that their only way out is to rise up and overthrow their oppressors they will remain as they are. The people of the Phillipines achieve it and so can others.
For the US and others to suggest they should intervene militarily is adverturist, look at the outcome in Somalia, did it ultimately solve anything?
If you want to fight a humanitarian war, do it with food aid, do it with medical aid, do it with compassion, not guns | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 10/17/06 - Enemy Combatant
Hello Fascists:
How long do you think it will take Bush to declare drug users enemy combatants? I say less than 2 years.
excon
paraclete answered on 10/18/06:hey dude drug users arn't combatants, they can barely stand, but if you were to declare drug pushers and the thugs that protect them enemy combatants and keep them in a hell hole with no possibility of release, it might have some impact, but don't expect them to be pursued with any more success that that other illegal combatant, Osama bin Laden
But what George could do is iniatiate another faith based initiative, divert funds away from existing porgrams to his new programs and actually take some initiatives against drugs, like treatment clinics, rehabilitation centres, training centres, all administered by faith based organisations | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 10/17/06 - CHENEY-Iraq Going Remarkably Well "Rush Limbaugh interviewed Vice President Cheney on his show today. At one point, Limbaugh asked Cheney to respond to growing frustration over U.S. efforts in Iraq.
Cheney acknowledged there is a “natural level of concern out there” because fighting didn’t end “instantaneously.” (Next month, the war will have lasted longer than U.S. fighting in World War II.) Cheney then pointed to various news items to paint a positive picture of conditions in Iraq and concluded, “If you look at the general overall situation, they’re doing **remarkably well**.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
Captain of Hindenberg" to mooring staff, "Things are going **remarkably well**"!!
Napoleon at Waterloo, "Things are going "remarkably well"!!
Nixon to Pat while walking to the helicopter, "Things are going **remarkably well**"!!!
How are things going in your life?? :D paraclete answered on 10/18/06:Yes they are doing "remarkably well" not to get killed in greater numbers, Military and civilian deaths have risen to new highs this month
as to your question remarkably well | | Question/Answer | tomder55 asked on 10/17/06 - Cindy Sheehad...
...is on a list of Nobel Peace Prize nominees(self proclaimed ..I don't know if she is or not ...but she says she is and is actively campaigning for the prize ). Want to help her ? Sign this petition .
When considering her qualifications I'm sure this passage from her book 'Peace Mom' will be the slam dunk that pushes here nomination over the top :
I often contemplate the "baby Hitler scenario" when I think of George Bush. It's the time-machine fantasy. If I had a time-machine (it always looks like H.G. Wells's invention), and if I rode in it back to the time George Bush was a baby, could I kill him .....
She can join the ranks of previous prize winners like Yassar Arafat .
paraclete answered on 10/17/06:very juvinile of you Tom, and how will you sign? | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 10/16/06 - It's been confirmed... ...Bush is inspired by Satan.
According to the Iranian media, Mr Ahmadinejad said he had inspirational links to God, and went on to say that if you were a true believer, God would show you miracles.
Then the Iranian president said Mr Bush was similar to him.
According to Mr Ahmadinejad, the US president also receives inspiration - but it is from Satan.
He repeated: "Satan inspires Mr Bush."
First Chavez, now Ahmedinajad - what will those poor suckers at TheocracyWatch do now that these world 'leaders' have set the record straight? paraclete answered on 10/17/06:one would like to think Bush was inspired in any particular, but the sad result is he is not. Face it, he is a puppet of the system with others pulling the strings. As to those other raving ratbags mascarading as international leaders, they are as much inspired by Satan as Bush. I have no doubt both Chavez and Ahmadinejad are inspired by Satan, only Satan would want a war that has killed hundreds of thousands | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 10/14/06 - I'm a criminal, all right!!
Hello Law Abiding Citizens:
I'm not one. I'm a felonious poker player. Should I be ashamed??? Maybe if I killed somebody.... but for placing a bet???? Nahhh. There must be something wrong with me..
Maybe that's why people kill other people a lot more now, than they ever did. Making stupid laws demean the not so stupid laws....
excon (forever)
paraclete answered on 10/15/06:look ex you know the rules, stop doing it. It's for the greater good, gambling is a serious social problem, so don't put money in the hands of international preditors | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 10/13/06 - NATIONAL DEBT ANSWER:
Collapse the multiple exchange rate into three rates. Institute a 'crawling peg' system of four monthly devaluations, different in each segment to achieve exchange rate unification.
(I couldn't make a clarification to the Board. So, I had to answer it this way)
paraclete answered on 10/13/06:sorry Hank you have lost me, is this "higher" finance or another exploration of the theories of your book.
The exchange rate is already pegged to inflation, the faster the rate of inflation the lower the value of the currency, this is determined by external factors and any attempt to manipulate it is doomed to failure | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 10/12/06 - Global 'warning' no. 2 California AG Puts Climate Skeptics on Trial
By Steven Milloy
August 1, 2006
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer is apparently trying to position California as a leader in the movement to silence scientific debate.
The State of California has filed a request in federal court to force auto makers to disclose all documents and communications between the companies and the so-called “climate skeptics.” California accuses the climate skeptics of playing a “major role in spreading disinformation about global warming.”
The underlying litigation is a lawsuit by General Motors, DaimlerChrysler Corp., and the Association of Automobile Manufacturers against the state of California challenging the state’s greenhouse gas emissions limits for new cars, light-duty trucks and sports utility vehicles (Central Valley Chrysler-Jeep Inc. v. Catherine Witherspoon, No. 04-6663).
California has been joined in the lawsuit by environmental activist groups including, the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense.
In a pre-trial discovery motion, California and the environmental groups asked for:
All DOCUMENTS relating to both GLOBAL WARMING and to any of the following individuals: S. Fred Singer, James Glassman, David Legates, Richard Lindzen, Patrick J. Michaels, Thomas Gale Moore, Robert C. Balling, Jr., Sherwood B. Idso, Craig D. Idso, Keith E. Idso, Sallie Baliunas, Paul Reiter, Chris Homer [sic], Ross McKitrick, Julian Morris, Frederick Seitz, Willie Soon, and Steven Milloy, including but not limited to:
1. All DOCUMENTS relating to any communications between YOU and these individuals, and
2. All DOCUMENTS relating to YOUR relationship (or the relationship of any automobile manufacturer or association of automobile manufacturers) with any of them, including but not limited to payments directly or indirectly from YOU or any other automobile manufacturer or association of automobile manufacturer to any of them.
The state then goes on to quote from Ross Gelbspan’s book entitled, “The Heat Is On”:
Ever since climate change took center stage at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, Pat Michaels and Robert Balling, together with Sherwood Idso, S. Fred Singer, Richard S. Lindzen, and a few other high-profile greenhouse skeptics have proven extraordinarily adept at draining the issue of all sense of crisis. They have made frequent pronouncements on radio and television programs, including a number of appearances by some of them on the Rush Limbaugh show; their interviews, columns, and letters have appeared in newspapers ranging from local weeklies to The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. In the process they have helped create a broad public belief that the question of climate change is hopelessly mired in unknowns….
The tiny group of dissenting scientists have been given prominent public visibility and congressional influence out of all proportion to their standing in the scientific community on the issue of global warming. They have used this platform to pound widely amplified drumbeats of doubt about climate change. These doubts are repeated by virtually every climate-related story in every news-papers and every TV and radio news outlet in the country.
By keeping the discussion focused on whether there really is a problem, these dozen or so dissidents—contradicting the consensus view held by 2,500 of the world’s top climate scientists—have until now prevented discussion about how to address the problem.
California then asserts that:
As set forth above, Defendants are entitled to review the documents most likely to contain internal dissent at the manufacturers and the most likely such documents are those dealing with the tactics of entities like the GCC and individuals like the “climate skeptics.”
The automakers responded by stating that:
The so-called “climate skeptics” are not on trial in this case, and the court should resist defendants’ attempt to put them on trial. Nor does this case require the court definitively to resolve questions regarding “GLOBAL WARMING” writ large. At most, as Plaintiffs have stated before and will state again at the risk of redundancy, the only relevant issue in this case with respect to global warming is the much narrower issue of what impact, if any, the A.B. 1493 Regulations will have on global warming. To adjudicate this issue, the court will need to assess the greenhouse gas reductions that the A.B. 1493 Regulations will cause and then compare these reductions to the proffered experts’ view about how much this level of reduction will affect the global climate. In the context of this battle-of-experts, Defendants’ attempt to plumb the plaintiffs’ files for documents regarding Defendants’ hit-list of “climate skeptics” is beside the point.
There are at least three points to make here.
First, California and the global warming lobby doesn’t like what the skeptics have to say and, by virtue of this sort of intimidation, is apparently out not only to silence the skeptics but to make sure that no one dare support the skeptics lest supporters be implicated as aiding and abetting thought-crimes against California-approved, politically-correct global warming science.
Next, I wonder whether Attorney General Lockyer disclosed to the judge that Gelbspan is a rather dubious character – for example, he misrepresented himself as a Pulitizer Prize winner on the jacket of his book, entitled “The Heat Is On.” Gelbspan never won a Pulitzer, nor was he ever even nominated. Click for more on Gelbspan
Finally, AG Lockyer has a track record of trying to silence scientific debate. In 2001, for example, the pro-gun control Lockyer gagged California state experts who opposed Lockyer’s dubious plans for pre-sale ballistics fingerprinting.
The so-called “climate skeptics” are all that stand between junk science-based global warming alarmism and higher energy prices, reduced economic growth and increased Green political power.
Support your favorite skeptic or prepare for the consequences.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well then, let's just get algore on the stand, too.
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Still think Bush is taking your rights away? The left is trying their darndest to silence scientific debate. Who needs real science when you have preconceptual science?
Go ahead, vote for a liberal, see what you get.paraclete answered on 10/12/06:what is it about that society over there that it is so adversarial. The climate change debate will not be helped by putting people on trial. Evidence is evidence and lawyers are entitled to make what discovery they will, that's their job. However we should not take inferences from this process, niether should we have another monkey show trial so lawyers can become richer
The science is clear here, things are happening that have not been observed before. The why is being debated and vested interests are protecting themselves as they always do. The oil industry knows it is already on borrowed time,the coal industry too, the only question there is how long, but even if it's a hundred years, the time to change is now. Nuclear energy has proven to be effective in powering large ships, why is there any vessel left in the world that is not nuclear powered? The same with ethanol, why is there any car not using ethanol fuel? you want to revolutioise agriculture in third world countries, there is a simple answer, grow fuel, and it's cheaper than oil in the long run. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 10/12/06 - Global Warming alert Via National Weather Service
Earliest Measurable Snowfall in Chicago and DeKalb’s History PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CHICAGO/ROMEOVILLE IL 1030 AM CDT THU OCT 12 2006
...EARLY SNOWFALL HISTORY IN ROCKFORD AND CHICAGO AND DEKALB...
0.3 INCHES OF SNOW HAS FALLEN AT CHICAGO O`HARE THIS MORNING...BREAKING THE RECORD OF THE EARLIEST MEASURABLE SNOWFALL IN CHICAGO`S HISTORY DATING BACK TO 1871. THE PREVIOUS RECORD WAS OCTOBER 18TH IN 1972 AND 1989 WHEN 0.2 AND 0.7 INCHES FELL.
ALSO...0.5 INCHES OF SNOW FELL IN DEKALB WHICH...DATING BACK TO 1895...IS THE RECORD FOR THE EARLIEST MEASURABLE SNOWFALL IN ITS HISTORY.
TODAY IS THE RECORD FOR THE EARLIEST MEASURABLE SNOWFALL FOR ROCKFORD AND SO FAR HAS ONLY RECORDED A TRACE SO FAR TODAY AT THE AIRPORT. IF ANY ACCUMULATIONS OCCUR...IT WILL TIE THE RECORD FOR EARLIEST MEASURABLE SNOW ACCUMULATION.
paraclete answered on 10/12/06:Yes and where I live, winter came a month early and was more severe thatn most and now summer has arrived early and with it el nino, more drought and fires. What does it mean, it means things are a changing.
Even before he knew what he was talking about Bob Dylan said it so well, listen to him again
THE TIMES ARE A CHANGING - Bob Dylan
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
....
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
.....
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a- changing
prophetic words and in this context, those who don't change will be come like the dinosaur... extinct | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 10/12/06 - Global 'warning' Last week I came across an article climing we had entered "ecological debt," meaining rising consumption of natural resources means that humans began "eating the planet" on 9 October. In looking for more info on this drivel I came across something even more interesting - and truly alarming on the 'global warming' front.
David Roberts, blogging in the environmental magazine Gristmill - a magazine that Al Gore and Billy Moyers granted interviews to - advocates Nuremberg-like trials for what algore calls "global warming deniers."
Check out this startling excerpt from George Monbiot's new book Heat.
It's about the climate-change "denial industry," which most of you are probably familiar with. What you may not know about is the peculiar role of the tobacco industry in the whole mess. I've read about this stuff for years and even I was surprised by some of the details.
When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards -- some sort of climate Nuremberg.
You people want more liberals running this country? This is what you're going to eventually get if you put the Republicans out to pasture. You think Bush is taking away your rights? You ain't seen nothin' compared to what's going to happen if the moonbats take control...
![]() paraclete answered on 10/12/06:Let's face it, whether we like it or not, there is a crisis, it is called climate change, and it is happening, whether science has a divided opinion on the cause or the effect, it cannot refute the definate truth that things are happening to our environment that we have not observed before and that we may have had a hand in tipping the balance. Can we stop the forces that we probally put in motion, highly unlikely, but to continue as we are, given the finite resources we have is lunacy. Just because we have a tendency to be alarmist doesn't invalidate the need to change. Europe has embraced some of this change because costs of sustaining the current regime are extortinate. So it makes good sence to change, but in the cheap energy economies, the head in the sand attitude prevails. It is only in an oil price crisis that people even start to listen and they listen to their pocket, they listen to their bank balance. We may not be able to stop the green house effect but we may be able to prevent it from becoming a runnaway. We have little time, if the perma frost melts the amount of carbon diooxide poured into the atmosphere will trigger catastrophic changes.
carrying on like an idiot and assigning blame is counter productive, the debate is not who did what to whom with which, but who has to change their attitude, their economic activity and even their over stuffed diet so they can fit in a smaller vehicle | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 10/11/06 - This just in First picture from the NORK nuke test is released
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As a bonus the picture of the July 4th missle test is also released :
![]() paraclete answered on 10/11/06:ah yes the acme atomic bomb company has made a sale | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 10/11/06 - N. Korea
Hello:
Bush: Well, NOT talking to the N. Koreans didn't work, so I'm going to stay the course.
Huh?
You guy's really ought to do something with that guy.
excon
paraclete answered on 10/11/06:Yes Ex, you really ought to do something with that guy, he is incapable of having more than one idea.
toughing it out isn't always the answer. Now for a Texican that is probally a revelation, after all you have to ride tall in the saddle and all that | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 10/11/06 - HERE OR THERE:
President Bush made a statement at his news conference this a.m. that went something like this:
If we don't beat them (Muslims/insurgents) over there, we'll have to beat them here (United States).
I agree 100%. How about you?
HANK
paraclete answered on 10/11/06:poor silly fools (you and Bush), like Vietnam this is a war you cannot win, surely the Soviet experience in Afganistan should have tought you that. This isn't a football game Hank where the strongest team wins, this is a golf game played in the rough | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 10/11/06 - NATIONAL DEBT:
Can our national debt be satisfied by printing $$$ et al at our Denver mint and/or elsewhere?
HANK
paraclete answered on 10/11/06:you are not serious, are you. That is a recipe for run away inflation | | Question/Answer | | Judgment_Day asked on 10/10/06 - Ironic and funny.... This is to good to not share....
An Indian (Native American) Chief residing on a reservation wrote to George Bush: "Be very careful with your immigration laws. We were careless with ours."
paraclete answered on 10/11/06:what you tolerate will ultimately kill you
If You Tolerate This...
Radio/Audio; Posted on: 2005-09-18 20:14:45
...then your children will pay the price.
by Kevin Alfred Strom
IF YOU TOLERATE multiracialism, then your children will suffer and die. That is not hyperbole. It is a rational and well-substantiated extrapolation, based on the known facts and current trends. It is a prediction that is already coming true.
Lets face it Multiculturism tipfied by multiracialism killed the american indigenous people, today they are a remnant.
Multiculturism tipified by multiracialism killed the Australian aboriginee, today they are a remnant
The same will be so of America of 2006, the Hispanics (multiculturism) will ultimately kill the multiracial american society
| | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 10/10/06 - Good news! The Republicans are going to lose control.
Hello people:
The bad news is the Democrats are going get it.
excon
PS> Question - what to do, what to do???
paraclete answered on 10/10/06:The sky is falling, the Sky is falling, extinction of life on Earth as we know it. Repent for the end is neigh. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 10/10/06 - How would Reagan defeat N.Korea without firing a shot President Reagan entered office in 1981 with a clear vision of allying with Prime Minister Thatcher of Great Britain and Pope John Paul II to defeat the Soviet Empire. Without firing a shot, they worked to strengthen the Solidarity trade union in Poland, increase the resources available to the Polish people and undermine the effectiveness of the Communist dictatorship. Within 11 years of Reagan's inauguration, the Soviet Union disappeared. The Cold War was over. We had won.
North Korea is a vicious dictatorship in the middle of a famine. Its policies have shrunk the height of the average North Korean by more than three inches over the last generation through malnutrition..(note the size of the dwarf with the chia pet hair doo running the place ). There are more than 200,000 North Koreans imprisoned in concentration camps. It is an evil regime grinding down the lives of its people.
A Reaganite strategy would funnel every penny of help and every bit of food aid through a system of private activity consciously designed to undermine the dictatorship.
A Reaganite strategy would isolate the government while helping the people. It would seek every angle to get humanitarian aid to the people. Food might be parachuted into the country, delivered from submarines and small boats by clandestine services, shipped in from China and Russia through anti-regime middlemen and delivered in every way possible to divert energy and authority away from the government and toward an alternative organizing system of individuals dedicated to a better, more prosperous life. Just as in Eastern Europe, we would rapidly discover a lot of people willing to subvert the regime for better lives for their families, and we would find the regime beginning to splinter and fragment in the face of opportunities for food, goods and prosperity.
He would also announce an agreement with our allies in the region like S.Korea ,Japan ,and Taiwan to arm them with the medium range tactical nuclear missiles and the latest in missile defense technology .He would sell the cruisers armed with AEGIS Combat Systems. And since we are retiring our F-14s anyway,why not sell them at a good price to our allies ? It is still the best fighter in the sky save the new F-A18 ?
paraclete answered on 10/10/06:No Reagan would say to Kim you want war, we have satellites that can shoot down your missiles, we have satellites that can target you with multi warheaded missiles. You want a demonstration, because we would love to test them, they have been up there a long time without action. | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 10/10/06 - Prepare for War Order A prepare for war order was issued to the commanders of the various vessels now chugging to the Staits of Hormuz, and it is reported that these commanders are concerned because Congress has not issued a Declaration of War on Iran.
Is a War on Iran Rove's October surprise? paraclete answered on 10/10/06:well George has to do something to restore the price of oil to it's former heights | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 10/10/06 - Hastert coverup - His staff did it! Hello:
Hastert: Well, I dunno if my staff covered up. They don't tell me anything. They'll be under oath pretty soon and then maybe we'll learn the truth.
Huh?
And, this is the guy who is running things for the Republicans............
Omigawd are we in trouble?
excon paraclete answered on 10/10/06:did it take this for you to find out? | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 10/09/06 - WAR ON IRAN IN THREE WEEKS "The aircraft carrier Eisenhower, accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Anzio, guided-missile destroyer USS Ramage, guided-missile destroyer USS Mason and the fast-attack submarine USS Newport News, is, as I write, making its way to the Straits of Hormuz off Iran. The ships will be in place to strike Iran by the end of the month. It may be a bluff. It may be a feint. It may be a simple show of American power. But I doubt it.
War with Iran—a war that would unleash an apocalyptic scenario in the Middle East—is probable by the end of the Bush administration. It could begin in as little as three weeks. This administration, claiming to be anointed by a Christian God to reshape the world, and especially the Middle East, defined three states at the start of its reign as “the Axis of Evil.” They were Iraq, now occupied; North Korea, which, because it has nuclear weapons, is untouchable; and Iran. Those who do not take this apocalyptic rhetoric seriously have ignored the twisted pathology of men like Elliott Abrams, who helped orchestrate the disastrous and illegal contra war in Nicaragua, and who now handles the Middle East for the National Security Council. He knew nothing about Central America. He knows nothing about the Middle East. He sees the world through the childish, binary lens of good and evil, us and them, the forces of darkness and the forces of light. And it is this strange, twilight mentality that now grips most of the civilian planners who are barreling us towards a crisis of epic proportions.
These men advocate a doctrine of permanent war, a doctrine which, as William R. Polk points out, is a slight corruption of Leon Trotsky’s doctrine of permanent revolution. These two revolutionary doctrines serve the same function, to intimidate and destroy all those classified as foreign opponents, to create permanent instability and fear and to silence domestic critics who challenge leaders in a time of national crisis. It works. The citizens of the United States, slowly being stripped of their civil liberties, are being herded sheep-like, once again, over a cliff.
But this war will be different. It will be catastrophic. It will usher in the apocalyptic nightmares spun out in the dark, fantastic visions of the Christian right. And there are those around the president who see this vision as preordained by God; indeed, the president himself may hold such a vision.
The hypocrisy of this vaunted moral crusade is not lost on those in the Middle East. Iran actually signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It has violated a codicil of that treaty written by European foreign ministers, but this codicil was never ratified by the Iranian parliament. I do not dispute Iran’s intentions to acquire nuclear weapons nor do I minimize the danger should it acquire them in the estimated five to 10 years. But contrast Iran with Pakistan, India and Israel. These three countries refused to sign the treaty and developed nuclear weapons programs in secret. Israel now has an estimated 400 to 600 nuclear weapons. The word “Dimona,” the name of the city where the nuclear facilities are located in Israel, is shorthand in the Muslim world for the deadly Israeli threat to Muslims’ existence. What lessons did the Iranians learn from our Israeli, Pakistani and Indian allies?
Given that we are actively engaged in an effort to destabilize the Iranian regime by recruiting tribal groups and ethnic minorities inside Iran to rebel, given that we use apocalyptic rhetoric to describe what must be done to the Iranian regime, given that other countries in the Middle East such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia are making noises about developing a nuclear capacity, and given that, with the touch of a button Israel could obliterate Iran, what do we expect from the Iranians? On top of this, the Iranian regime grasps that the doctrine of permanent war entails making “preemptive” and unprovoked strikes.
Those in Washington who advocate this war, knowing as little about the limitations and chaos of war as they do about the Middle East, believe they can hit about 1,000 sites inside Iran to wipe out nuclear production and cripple the 850,000-man Iranian army. The disaster in southern Lebanon, where the Israeli air campaign not only failed to break Hezbollah but united most Lebanese behind the militant group, is dismissed. These ideologues, after all, do not live in a reality-based universe. The massive Israeli bombing of Lebanon failed to pacify 4 million Lebanese. What will happen when we begin to pound a country of 70 million people? As retired General Wesley K. Clark and others have pointed out, once you begin an air campaign it is only a matter of time before you have to put troops on the ground or accept defeat, as the Israelis had to do in Lebanon. And if we begin dropping bunker busters, cruise missiles and iron fragmentation bombs on Iran this is the choice that must be faced—either sending American forces into Iran to fight a protracted and futile guerrilla war or walking away in humiliation.
“As a people we are enormously forgetful,” Dr. Polk, one of the country’s leading scholars on the Middle East, told an Oct. 13 gathering of the Foreign Policy Association in New York. “We should have learned from history that foreign powers can’t win guerrilla wars. The British learned this from our ancestors in the American Revolution and re-learned it in Ireland. Napoleon learned it in Spain. The Germans learned it in Yugoslavia. We should have learned it in Vietnam and the Russians learned it in Afghanistan and are learning it all over again in Chechnya and we are learning it, of course, in Iraq. Guerrilla wars are almost unwinnable. As a people we are also very vain. Our way of life is the only way. We should have learned that the rich and powerful can’t always succeed against the poor and less powerful.”
An attack on Iran will ignite the Middle East. The loss of Iranian oil, coupled with Silkworm missile attacks by Iran on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, could send oil soaring to well over $110 a barrel. The effect on the domestic and world economy will be devastating, very possibly triggering a huge, global depression. The 2 million Shiites in Saudi Arabia, the Shiite majority in Iraq and the Shiite communities in Bahrain, Pakistan and Turkey will turn in rage on us and our dwindling allies. We will see a combination of increased terrorist attacks, including on American soil, and the widespread sabotage of oil production in the Gulf. Iraq, as bad as it looks now, will become a death pit for American troops as Shiites and Sunnis, for the first time, unite against their foreign occupiers.
The country, however, that will pay the biggest price will be Israel. And the sad irony is that those planning this war think of themselves as allies of the Jewish state. A conflagration of this magnitude could see Israel drawn back in Lebanon and sucked into a regional war, one that would over time spell the final chapter in the Zionist experiment in the Middle East. The Israelis aptly call their nuclear program “the Samson option.” The Biblical Samson ripped down the pillars of the temple and killed everyone around him, along with himself.
If you are sure you will be raptured into heaven, your clothes left behind with the nonbelievers, then this news should cheer you up. If you are rational, however, these may be some of the last few weeks or months in which to enjoy what is left of our beleaguered, dying republic and way of life."Chris Hedges, blogging
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ paraclete answered on 10/10/06:I think George has a little more to think about right now and that battle group probally made a distinct right turn | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 10/09/06 - 2001 Bush Withdraws US from Anti-Ballistic Missle Treaty In 2001, Bush withdrew America from the Anti-Ballistic Missle Treaty.
Now, we have N Korea launching missles and conducting an underground nuclear weapons test using plutonium obtained since Bush Presidency.
Bush started a war of adventurism in Iraq.
We have Russia and Iran and others forming an alliance to oppose America's position as the sole remaining superpower, a hyperpower, as it were. The New Cold War.
There are rumors of a plan to invade Iran.
NEVER ENDING WAR IS OBVIOUSLY HIS SICK PLAN.
Who benefits from this plan? I know do you?? paraclete answered on 10/09/06:What's the point of having a treaty when back woods places like Korea, Pakistan and India are developing missiles, who are you fooling, only yourselves.
However what you have now is a license to kill | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 10/09/06 - Bush failed!! - Bush failed!! - Bush failed!!!
Hello Bushies:
In the final analsys, North Korea is the biggest failure in an administration that knows nothing else BUT failure. The Koreans DO have WMD's!!!!!!!
It's a failure that endangers the lives of your family and our country. What does that say for family values?
excon
paraclete answered on 10/09/06:paranoia, what do you care if some tin pot dictator on the edge of Asia has nuclear weapons. Do you know why? because that person and that nation feel insecure with american foriegn policy, particularly as it's negative aspects appear directed at them. George Bush has a big mouth and this is the result. Talk big, carry a big stick, and watch out for the big dog while the little one is biting your ankles | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 10/09/06 - WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT N KOREA..BUSH “Why should I care about North Korea?”
In "State of Denial"(new book), Bob Woodward recounts a conversation between then-Gov. George W. Bush and then-Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Prince Bandar, in which Bush wonders why he should care about North Korea. “I get these briefings on all parts of the world,” Bush said, “and everybody is talking to me about North Korea.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Why indeed?? paraclete answered on 10/09/06:what, no mention of America? | | Question/Answer | | arcura asked on 10/07/06 - What dod you thing will happen if N. Korea tests???? Shots Fired Along Korean Border as Tensions Mount Over Nuke Tests
Saturday , October 07, 2006
SEOUL, South Korea — Tensions mounted over North Korea's threat to test its first atomic bomb, with shots ringing out Saturday along the border with South Korea and Japan warning of harsh sanctions if Pyongyang goes nuclear.
With a possible test expected as early as Sunday, the U.N. Security Council issued a stern statement Friday urging the country to abandon its nuclear ambitions and warning of unspecified consequences if the isolated, communist regime doesn't comply.
Jittery nations have warned a test would unravel regional security and possibly trigger an arms race.
CountryWatch: North Korea
A midday incursion Saturday by North Korean troops into the southern side of the no-man's-land separating North and South Korea only stoked the unease.
South Korean soldiers rattled off 40 warning shots at the five communist troops who crossed the center line of the Demilitarized Zone, the inter-Korean buffer.
It was unclear whether the North Korean advance was intended as a provocation, or was an attempt to go fishing at a nearby stream, an official at South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said on condition of anonymity, citing official policy. No one was hurt, and the North Koreans retreated.
While such border skirmishes are not unheard of, they are relatively rare. Saturday's incursion was only the second this year, the official said.
Meanwhile, world powers were stepping up diplomatic efforts to avert a nuclear test. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was to visit Beijing on Sunday for talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao and then proceed to Seoul for talks with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun the following day.
A State Department spokesman, Kurtis Cooper, said Saturday the United States was concerned about North Korea's threat to test its first atomic bomb and that the department was closely monitoring the high tensions.
Also Saturday, South Korea's nuclear envoy announced he will visit Beijing on Monday for two days of talks with Chinese officials about the threatened nuclear test.
In a separate statement from Tokyo, Japan's Foreign Ministry said it was prepared to push for punitive measures at the United Nations if the North goes ahead with the test.
"If North Korea conducts a nuclear weapons test despite the concerns expressed by international society, the Security Council must adopt a resolution outlining severely punitive measures," the ministry said.
Japan plans to step up economic sanctions against North Korea, tighten trade restrictions and freeze additional North Korea-linked bank accounts should a nuclear test be carried out, Japan's Nihon Keizai newspaper reported.
The U.N. statement adopted Friday expressed "deep concern" over North Korea's announcement Tuesday that it is planning a test.
The council acted amid speculation that a nuclear test could come on Sunday, the anniversary of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's appointment as head of the Korean Workers' Party in 1997.
Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi told Japan's TV Asahi: "Based on the development so far, it would be best to view that a test is possible this weekend."
The U.N. statement also urged North Korea to return to six-nation negotiations aimed at persuading the country to abandon its nuclear ambitions in exchange for security guarantees and badly needed economic aid.
Those talks, which involve the United States, China, Japan, Russia and North and South Korea, have been stalled since late last year, when North Korea boycotted the negotiations in response to American economic sanctions.
A North Korea expert in China, the North's closest ally, said only the removal of the sanctions could dissuade the North.
"North Korea has already made a decision to carry out a test," said Li Dunqiu of China's State Council Development Research Center, a Cabinet-level think tank. But "if the U.S. removes sanctions ... then tensions can be eased. Otherwise launching a nuclear test is unavoidable for North Korea."
The United States imposed economic restrictions on North Korea last year to punish it for alleged counterfeiting and money laundering.
North Korea said Tuesday it decided to act in the face of what it claimed was "the U.S. extreme threat of a nuclear war," but gave no date for the test. Washington has repeatedly said it has no intention of invading North Korea paraclete answered on 10/08/06:to answer your specific question, there will be a nuclear explosion, to answer your political question, there will a call for sanctions but it would be stupid to start another war over WMD | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 10/06/06 - IF I WAS PRESIDENT ...
1. I'd bring all of our guys and gals home from Iraq no later than December 1st. (As of this evening, some 2,737 of our troops have been killed in a war that's going nowhere. This does NOT include Afghanistan)
2. I'd bring almost all of our guys and gals home from Afghanistan no later than December 1st.
3. I'd suggest to all private citizens to vote out all the trash in Congress on November 7th.
4. I'd send ALL illegals back to where they came from.
5. I'd commend Wal-Mart for taking the lead in making prescription drugs (generic) affordable for all citizens. (I sure wish Sam was still with us!)
6. I'd author a Constitution of Morality for ALL local, State and Federal employees. This applies to all Congressman as well.
7. I'd increase the minimum wage to at least $9.40 an hour.
8. I'd tell Iran to go to Hell.
9. I'd tell North Korea to go to Hell.
10. I'd consider isolation for our Country after all of the above materialized.
That's it! I'm mad as hell about many things that are going on at this time in our small World. If I'm not making any sense, tell me! Even the homeless need a program to get back on their feet. That can be #11.
HANK
paraclete answered on 10/07/06:go for it Hank. isolationism isn't the answer but nor is engagement, the best thing you can do is enforce and defend your borders, as to internal issues, make your people take responsibility, this is important | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 10/05/06 - The price of lettuce
Hello antiMexicans:
Since the beginning of this discussion I have been on OUR side. In terms of my argument, OUR side doesn't care about illegal immigration. OUR side is only interested in clean dishes at our local restaurants, and clean sheets at Motel 6. We want apples, and grapes that won't send us to the poor house to buy. And yes, we want our lawns mowed and our children watched - ALL at reasonable prices - and why shouldn't we?
Well, you haven't been listening to me. You think OUR side is the one that wants to kick out the illegals already here and stop any more from coming in.
That's fine. But the price of lettuce is going to skyrocket, and the apples are withering on the vine, right now, today, as we speak. And, when the prices hit YOU in the pocketbook, let's see how quickly you change your tune.
Me? I'd rather fix the agency that keeps willing workers on lists for years instead of letting them come in to pick grapes. That's what's broken - not the border.
AND THAT AIN'T FIXED!!!!
excon
PS> And, I don’t care how long you build your fence, or how high it is. If there’s a job to be filled, they’re gonna fill it, and they’ll piss on your fence as they cross.
paraclete answered on 10/05/06:Ex, there is nothing like a good rave is there, and this is nothing like a good rave.
"the apples are withering on the vine"? if apples grew on vines like grapes they could be easily machine harvested, however you have overlooked the ingenuity of mankind, when you can't find labour then you use machines and how hard can it be to harvest lettice and apples with machines, so the price won't change very much but all the illegals can go home.
Having picked grapes by hand I can tell you that the machines can do it quicker and no one can afford pickers today and who wants to work for $50 a day, not I, so you are just going to have to pay a little more for that fruit and drink a little less of the juice of the grape | | Question/Answer | | Judgment_Day asked on 10/02/06 - This is funny...enjoy! http://i.euniverse.com/funpages/cms_content/13180/HillaryCondi_HoDown.swf paraclete answered on 10/04/06:not very funny | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 10/03/06 - Illegal immigration Great editorial by someone that really explains the illegal immigration situation:
Recently large demonstrations have taken place across the country protesting the fact that Congress is finally addressing the issue of illegal immigration. Certain people are angry that the US might protect its own borders, might make it harder to sneak into this country and, once here, to stay indefinitely. Let me see if I correctly understand the thinking behind these protests.
Let's say I break into your house. Let's say that when you discover me in your house, you insist that I leave. But I say, "I've made all the beds and washed the dishes and did the laundry and swept the floors; I've done all the things you don't like to do. I'm hard-working and honest (except for when I broke into your house).
According to the protesters, not only must you let me stay, you must add me to your family's insurance plan, educate my kids, and provide other benefits to me and to my family (my husband will do your yard work because he too is hard-working and honest, except for that breaking in part). If you try to call the police or force me out, I will call my friends who will picket your house carrying signs that proclaim my right to be there.
It's only fair, after all, because you have a nicer house than I do, and I'm just trying to better myself. I'm a hard-working and honest, person, except for well, you know.
And what a deal it is for me!! I live in your house, contributing only a fraction of the cost of my keep, and there is nothing you can do about it without being accused of selfishness, prejudice and being an anti-housebreaker. Oh yeah, I want you to learn my language so you can communicate with me. paraclete answered on 10/04/06:great analogy, however don't forget that if you didn't have all these people earning income in your land, you might actually have to give some monetary assistance to these places where these people come from.
What I say is this, no freeloaders, if they can't come with, say enough money to get by for twelve months, they shouldn't come. | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 10/03/06 - For MaryChouSan... er Susan I have read some of your posts over the past few days and I felt a little economics lesson was indicated.
First of all, national debt is NOT and indicator of national health.
When you go for a mortgage or a car loan, does the lender only look at the amount of debt that you have? Or does he also look at your assets and income? If he's smart, he's looking at your assets, liabilities and income as a whole picture. Otherwise he's not making very many loans.
Similarly, when you look at the health of the US economy, you need to look at the assets, liabilities and income as a whole picture. Why would you look at debt levels alone without looking at what that level of debt has purchased and what the income has been derived from those assets?
In this case what that debt has "bought" us was increased employment levels, and thus increased income in the form of taxes. By lowering the tax rates, more people became employed, and tax income increased, despite the fact that everyone was paying less per person. From 2003 (when Bush's 2nd round of tax cuts took place)to 2005 IRS tax collections grew from $1,952,929,045,000 to $2,268,895,122,000, a 16% increase in tax revenue.
Second of all, looking only at national debt without looking at it as a percentage of GDP doesn't mean anything: it's just a number. Looking at it that way, Donald Trump must be a pauper because his personal debt is in the millions. Without looking at his assets and his income, the level of liabilities alone is decptive.
So... looking at the national debt as a percentage of GDP: the highest levels ever reached were during the Rooseveldt and Truman administrations: debt was 121% of GDP in 1946. And that was at a time when the economy was in recovery from the Great Depression. High government debt was necessary to the government to run WWII and to give the economy the booste it needed to recover from the depression.
We again see the national debt going up as a percentage of GDP starting in the late 80s and through 1996... national debt reached 67% of GDP in 1996 before it started to decrease again. And this was during what is arguably the greatest economic boom in our nations history. Of course it was based on the telecom bubble, where the economy boomed based on investments in companies that had no earnings... but that is a different story. In short, while more millionaires were being created in the USA than in any other period in history, national debt was at its highest levels as a percentage of GDP. And conversely, when national debt started coming down in 1997 - 2001, that's when the telecom bubble burst, and the country saw more former millionaires filing for bankruptcy than ever before.
So it could be argued that when national debt is the highest is when the economy does best, and when the national debt decreases, its time to watch out for an economic bust. But this would be too simplistic an argument.
Third, national debt is a terrible way to look at the economy anyway. As I've mentioned before, its just a number: it doesn't give the whole picture.
Better ways of looking at the economy are employment/unemployment levels, inflation (CPI or PPI), home ownership levels, residential construction levels, and retail sales levels. Each of these is a good indicator of how the small individual is doing economically.
Currently (as of August 2006) unemployment is at only 4.7%... an extremely low level, histoically speaking, and a level not seen since before 9-11.
CPI for 2005 was increasing at roughly 6%, which is pretty low as well.
These statistics indicate that more people are able to afford to buy more stuff.
Homeownership in the 2nd quarter of 2006 was at 68.7%... almost 70% of Americans own their own homes. The highest level of homeownership we have ever seen was in the 1st quarter 2005 at 69.1%.
Construction speding in 2005 totaled $13,707,661,000,000, up from $12,384,083,000,000 (11%)in 2004 and $11,103,248,000,000 (24%) in 2003. This included private construction of $10,775,579,000,000 and public (government) construction of $2,932,079,000,000. Of that total, $7,794,633,000,000 was for residential use.
These statistics indicate that people are more able to afford to build and/or buy new housing.
Retails sales for the first quarter of 2006 totaled in the $463 billion range, up $37.5 billion from the same period in 2005. Net profits increased by roughly $4 billion for the same period. This indicates that MORE PEOPLE ARE BUYING RETAIL GOODS, which in turn indicates that more people have money to spend on retail goods.
The bottom line is that for all the talk you hear about the national debt being $8 trillion, it is meaning less as an indicator of the economic health of the country without taking into consideration other information.
Elliot paraclete answered on 10/04/06:National debt, that's what I had before I moved from the National Bank.
GDP that's the Greater Democratic Party who increase the National Debt to increase the nations wealth
A better way of looking at the nation's economic health is the balance of payments. For some pecular reason the WMF thinks high balance of payments debt means impending disaster but as recent observation will show the higher the imbalance of payments the higher the economic activity | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 10/03/06 - New Terror threat NEW YORK -- A public school teacher was arrested today at JFK International
Airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a
protractor, a set square, a slide rule and a calculator.
At a morning press conference, the Attorney General said he believes the man
is a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement.
He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the FBI with carrying
weapons of math instruction.
"Al-gebra is a problem for us," Gonzales said. "They desire solutions by
means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in search of absolute values.
They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves as 'unknowns', but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of
the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country.
paraclete answered on 10/04/06:As I understand it Al-gebra was of Muslim origin so the FBI are right to be alarmed, after all these techniques have been taught to the unsuspecting children who daily intone the square root of a is equal to the cube root of x divided by the square of y, why I do not know
Great laugh Tom | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 10/02/06 - A COUPLE OF FOLY'S E-MAILS "In addition to explicit sexual language, former Congressman Mark Foley's Internet messages also include repeated efforts to get the underage recipient to rendezvous with him at night.
"I would drive a few miles for a hot stud like you," Foley said in one message obtained by ABC News.
The FBI says it has opened a "preliminary investigation" of Foley's e-mails. Federal law enforcement officials say attempts by Foley to meet in person could constitute the necessary evidence for a federal charge of "soliciting for sex" with a minor on the Internet.
In another message, Foley, using the screen name Maf54, appears to describe having been together with the teen in San Diego.
Maf54: I miss you lots since san diego.
Teen: ya I cant wait til dc
Maf54: :)
Teen: did you pick a night for dinner
Maf54: not yet…but likely Friday
Teen: ok…ill plan for Friday then
Maf54: that will be fun
The messages also show the teen is, at times, uncomfortable with Foley's aggressive approach.
Maf54: I want to see you
Teen: Like I said not til feb…then we will go to dinner
Maf54: and then what happens
Teen: we eat…we drink…who knows…hang out…late into the night
Maf54: and
Teen: I dunno
Maf54: dunno what
Teen: hmmm I have the feeling that you are fishing here…im not sure what I would be comfortable with…well see
Foley resigned Friday after ABC News questioned him about the Internet messages.
He says he has checked into a rehabilitation facility to deal with alcohol and behavioral issues."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So, "The Family Values Party" covers up this vile Foley's advances to young men, this pedophile freak was on a committee to protect missing and abused children.
The whole country is watching. paraclete answered on 10/02/06:if the whole country is watching they must have turned into a nation of voyeurs, surely this sad incident isn't worth multiple postings with no question | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 10/02/06 - RICE WARNED OF ATTACK IN JULY 2001 WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 — Members of the Sept. 11 commission said today that they were alarmed that they were told nothing about a White House meeting in July 2001 at which George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, is reported to have warned Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, about an imminent Al Qaeda attack and failed to persuade her to take action.
Details of the previously undisclosed meeting on July 10, 2001, two months before the Sept. 11 terror attacks, were first reported last week in a new book by the journalist Bob Woodward......"
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Lots of pants on fire in the White House....liars, the lot of them. paraclete answered on 10/02/06:What do you expect, The whole bunch of them has demonstrated incompetience, why would this be any different. Where I come from we call such people teflon coated, time and time again they are exposed but they are still there | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 10/01/06 - STATE OF EMERGENCY "PAT BUCHANAN is finally hip after all these years.
The man who is legendary for advising Richard Nixon, appearing on "Crossfire" and running for president, told me that never before has he evoked the level of interest in a matter of public policy.
I spent some time with him earlier this week after reading his new book, "State of Emergency," in which he pulls no punches in spelling out how the United States is being "invaded." So worried is Buchanan that he says children born in 2006 will experience the "death of the West." It's not just hyperbole, he's got lots of data to back up his concerns:
• There are at least as many illegal aliens now in the United States as all English, Irish, and Jewish immigrants who came to America in 400 years.
• Every month, the border patrol apprehends about 150,000 illegal aliens, more than the number of troops in Iraq.
• One in every 12 people breaking into the United States illegally has a criminal record.
• By 2050, the U.S. population of European descent will be a minority, as it is today in California, Texas, and New Mexico.
Buchanan argues that these trends make America more vulnerable than any threat we face from al Qaeda.
It's not just the magnitude of the invasion, it's the composition. Like the Cuban Mariel boatlift, Buchanan makes the case that we've become a dumping ground for the Third World.
Those coming here are disproportionately poor, uneducated and criminal. And the fact that they are emigrating from countries that have themselves never been fully assimilated into the First World, is what separates this group from our forefathers.
They are breaking in, not playing by the rules. Most important, many have no desire to be American. So why does it continue?
The status quo is enabled by multinational corporations anxious to topple sovereign borders, a Hispanic media that depends for its survival on the perpetuation of bilingualism and gutless politicians.
Political correctness is a major factor. Witness how many seek to dismiss Buchanan's analysis as the work of a white guy uncomfortable with the realization that his kind is losing its dominance and control. Or they try to label him a racist or xenophobe.
That kind of talk limits the debate. But Buchanan has heard it before. The elitists who try to cast him as a relic clinging to cultural oppression are no match for his arguments.
He's on a mission to foster a debate he knows he can win on the merits.
That'll happen if Republicans get some guts and stop deluding themselves into thinking they'll get Hispanic votes sooner or later. Democrats, after all, are a winner on this issue. They're already getting this bloc, and soon the political dynamics will be such that no candidate for president will be willing to go to California, Arizona or New Mexico and speak the truth about immigration, much in the same way that no one will go to Florida and question the Cuban embargo.
Thinking about all this, I'm reminded of a personal story. In 1926, Victoria Grovich came to Ellis Island with an infant in her arms to reconnect with her husband, who left her in Yugoslavia a year before so he could go to work in the Pennsylvania coal mines and establish a new home.
Today, she is my 100-year-old grandmother. One of her daughters met the son of Ilko Smirikowitz, who had come here from Austria-Poland in 1891. That union produced a talk-show host and columnist who in 2006 has had his eyes opened by Patrick J. Buchanan to the fact that the American dream has become a national nightmare.
"State of Emergency," indeed. It's time to close and defend our borders." Michael Smerconish, blogging
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
President Bush and his Crime Family including a Republican majority in both houses of Congress have CHOSEN TO IGNORE THIS PROBLEM by inaction over the lst six years.
Why is Bush so willing to let America be overrun by illegal Hispanics? It is because he, his wealthy friends and Corporations benefit financially....and America gets screwed.
This issue alone is grounds for impeachment.
paraclete answered on 10/01/06:I thought you had a Department of Homeland Security over there. Are you saying it's job is not to secure the homeland, which would include monitoring the borders and detaining all who try to cross illegally. I can see you have a large problem, what happens to the 150,000 people a month, do you have concentration camps on the border? if not, it's a strategy, think what could be accomplished by a couple of months of forced labour, you could have a big wall constructed right along the border in no time and at bargain rates.
I think the US problem is it has lost the ability to think low tech and practical, this problem could be easily solved | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 09/30/06 - The Bush Boom From a NY Sun editorial :
The Dow Jones industrial average flirting with an all-time high is just one more signal of how healthy the Bush administration's tax cuts have been for the American economy. The stock market has withstood a war in Iraq, an untested new chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank who is filling the large shoes of Alan Greenspan, high oil prices, the Sarbanes-Oxley Full Employment for Accountants Act, and Eliot Spitzer's raid on the New York Stock Exchange and many of its brokerage houses. Yes, the stock market reached new highs in the Clinton years, but those valuations were unsustainable, driven partly by speculation in money-losing Internet companies. In this market, stock prices are backed by underlying earnings — that is, actual profits — that have been robust, driven by American ingenuity, freer global trade, and yes, the incentives unleashed by those Bush tax cuts. Experience shows that economic upturns don't last forever, but this one has been remarkably durable and long-lived, especially given the background conditions. It's something to celebrate.
.................
Larry Kudlow calls the Bush economy the greatest story NEVER told. I don't have to ask why the press isn't covering it . [They'd rather dig deep into George Allen's hereditary past ;or find unsubtantiated claims that he's a racist .Meanwhile his opponent allegedly drove through Watts with his buddies;pointing unloaded rifles at African-Americans while yelling vile names at them . ] But Bush and all the Republicans who want to win their Congressional races should be shouting it loud and often .The tax cuts worked !! Any Republican who chose to run away from Bush in this campaign is a fool. paraclete answered on 10/01/06:There is no bomb thee are market cycles and yes they do seem to happen when things are going better but Bush has nothing to do with it | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 09/29/06 - Bush the puppet of Kissinger ? I have been thinking about this all day since I read that Bob Woodward made the claim in a 60 Minutes interview to be aired Sunday that HK is a frequent visitor to the White House to tell Bush how to wage the war. Besides Woodward's obvious lack of math skills (he claims an average of 800-900 attacks on US troops a week ;on average, every 15 minutes which would be almost the force than the Germans mustered during the Battle of the Bulge );it is most improbable that the master of realpolitik would be advising the ideological 'neo-cons 'on how to wage this war short of reinstating Saddam on the throne.
Woodward claims that Kissinger advises Bush to stay the course because he sees the American mistake in Vietnam was it's lack of resolve to win it . uhhh yeah. That is what Bush has been saying all along;that it would be a big mistake to withdraw .If anything, Bush has opened the eyes of Kissinger, not the other way around.
Woodward said “This is so fascinating. Kissinger’s fighting the Vietnam War again " ,which I find interesting since I believe it is people like Woodward and the anti-war crowd that are trying to relive their glory days of the past . Woodward for one has not been relevent since Watergate . paraclete answered on 09/30/06:What's this; the White House is haunted by the ghost of mistakes past. I would have thought there were enough hauntings by the ghosts of mistakes present and certainly Bush is haunted by the ghost of mistakes future, where he will probally earn the title of mission unaccomplished George | | Question/Answer | | CeeBee2 asked on 09/29/06 - 2nd try - Newsweek cover for all but the U.S. (Sorry - had forgotten to remove the quote marks in the tagging)
Newsweek Cover Stories
paraclete answered on 09/29/06:what rubbish, Waziristan has existed for centuries, Pakistan is just being pragmatic recognising that's it's not worth national resources in a constant war with these people. yes their views are extreme but they are entitled to exist in their mountains.
What is the issue is their attacks on Afganistan and that is an american problem | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 09/29/06 - Water World? What the world needs now is more water
http://www.smh.com.au/multimedia/Australia/index.html paraclete answered on 09/29/06:I expect, Mat, that you mean if we are drowned then so are all the less desirable parts of the world with us. Yes, we will survive but there arn't many who will, just the gentle people of the earth. It put's Noah's flood in perspective | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 09/28/06 - House Approves Bill on Terror Detainees By ANNE PLUMMER FLAHERTY Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The House approved legislation Wednesday giving the Bush administration authority to interrogate and prosecute terrorism detainees, moving President Bush to the edge of a pre-election victory with a key piece of his anti-terror plan.
The mostly party-line 253-168 vote in the Republican-run House prompted bitter charges afterward by House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., that opposition Democrats were coddling terrorists, perhaps foreshadowing campaign attack ads to come. Democrats responded that the GOP leader was trying to provoke fear...
The legislation would establish a military court system to prosecute terror suspects, a response to the Supreme Court ruling in June that Congress' blessing was necessary. While the bill would grant defendants more legal rights than they had under the administration's old system, it nevertheless would eliminate rights usually granted in civilian and military courts.
The measure also provides extensive definitions of war crimes such as torture, rape and biological experiments _ but gives Bush broad authority to decide which other techniques U.S. interrogators can legally use. The provisions are intended to protect CIA interrogators from being prosecuted for war crimes.
For nearly two weeks, the GOP has been embarrassed as the White House and rebellious Republican senators have fought publicly over whether Bush's plan would give him too much authority. But they struck a compromise last Thursday, and Republicans are hoping approval will bolster their effort to cast themselves as strong on national security, a marquee issue this election year...
...House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Democrats feared the House-passed measure could endanger U.S. soldiers by encouraging other countries to limit the rights of captured American troops. She said the bill would be vulnerable to being overturned by the Supreme Court.
"Speaker Hastert's false and inflammatory rhetoric is yet another desperate attempt to mislead the American people and provoke fear," said Pelosi, D-Calif., adding that Democrats "have an unshakable commitment to catching, convicting and punishing terrorists who attack Americans."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Democrats responded that the GOP leader was trying to provoke fear." What are the Democrats doing, instilling confidence?
Kucinich: "This bill is everything we don't believe in."
Levin: The bill would be "used by our terrorist enemies as evidence of U.S. hypocrisy when it comes to proclamations of human rights."
Leahy: “This is un-American, this is unconstitutional, this is contrary to American interests, this is not what a great and good and powerful nation should be doing.”
Hoyer: “When our moral standing is eroded, our international credibility is diminished as well.”
Tauscher: "Keep in mind, the president's original plan has not given us the ability to prosecute anyone, because they got it wrong...and because they blew it, and are about to blow it again, we're still not going to be able to bring the 9/11 perpetrators to justice."
Pelosi: “It’s been five years since 9/11, yet not one person who has been directly responsible for 9/11 has been prosecuted and punished. There’s something wrong with this picture. And this bill today, because it does violence to the Constitution of the United States, also could produce convictions that may well be overturned...
This bill does not help us achieve the goal of bringing anyone to trial. It is badly flawed. It threatens the safety of our troops, our ability to prosecute terrorists effectively, our ability to protect the American people, and to honor our oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution...
“Perhaps most distressing, this bill could very well boomerang on us – putting American troops in danger...
Isn't that 'provoking fear'?
Pelosi said Democrats "have an unshakable commitment to catching, convicting and punishing terrorists who attack Americans." Is that the Democrat plan for protecting us I've been hearing about, punishing those who attack us? What's their plan for preventing those attacks? paraclete answered on 09/29/06:whose left to prosecute for 9/11 not the prisoners in Gitmo, only OBL remains to be captured and prosecuted to bring closure, but it's clear closure isn't what's desired. Maintain the rage and stay in office, that's all that matters to a politician.
You can fight all the wars you like you can't stop the attacks and you make them more likely. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 09/28/06 - House Approves Bill on Terror Detainees By ANNE PLUMMER FLAHERTY Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The House approved legislation Wednesday giving the Bush administration authority to interrogate and prosecute terrorism detainees, moving President Bush to the edge of a pre-election victory with a key piece of his anti-terror plan.
The mostly party-line 253-168 vote in the Republican-run House prompted bitter charges afterward by House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., that opposition Democrats were coddling terrorists, perhaps foreshadowing campaign attack ads to come. Democrats responded that the GOP leader was trying to provoke fear...
The legislation would establish a military court system to prosecute terror suspects, a response to the Supreme Court ruling in June that Congress' blessing was necessary. While the bill would grant defendants more legal rights than they had under the administration's old system, it nevertheless would eliminate rights usually granted in civilian and military courts.
The measure also provides extensive definitions of war crimes such as torture, rape and biological experiments _ but gives Bush broad authority to decide which other techniques U.S. interrogators can legally use. The provisions are intended to protect CIA interrogators from being prosecuted for war crimes.
For nearly two weeks, the GOP has been embarrassed as the White House and rebellious Republican senators have fought publicly over whether Bush's plan would give him too much authority. But they struck a compromise last Thursday, and Republicans are hoping approval will bolster their effort to cast themselves as strong on national security, a marquee issue this election year...
...House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said Democrats feared the House-passed measure could endanger U.S. soldiers by encouraging other countries to limit the rights of captured American troops. She said the bill would be vulnerable to being overturned by the Supreme Court.
"Speaker Hastert's false and inflammatory rhetoric is yet another desperate attempt to mislead the American people and provoke fear," said Pelosi, D-Calif., adding that Democrats "have an unshakable commitment to catching, convicting and punishing terrorists who attack Americans."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Democrats responded that the GOP leader was trying to provoke fear." What are the Democrats doing, instilling confidence?
Kucinich: "This bill is everything we don't believe in."
Levin: The bill would be "used by our terrorist enemies as evidence of U.S. hypocrisy when it comes to proclamations of human rights."
Leahy: “This is un-American, this is unconstitutional, this is contrary to American interests, this is not what a great and good and powerful nation should be doing.”
Hoyer: “When our moral standing is eroded, our international credibility is diminished as well.”
Tauscher: "Keep in mind, the president's original plan has not given us the ability to prosecute anyone, because they got it wrong...and because they blew it, and are about to blow it again, we're still not going to be able to bring the 9/11 perpetrators to justice."
Pelosi: “It’s been five years since 9/11, yet not one person who has been directly responsible for 9/11 has been prosecuted and punished. There’s something wrong with this picture. And this bill today, because it does violence to the Constitution of the United States, also could produce convictions that may well be overturned...
This bill does not help us achieve the goal of bringing anyone to trial. It is badly flawed. It threatens the safety of our troops, our ability to prosecute terrorists effectively, our ability to protect the American people, and to honor our oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution...
“Perhaps most distressing, this bill could very well boomerang on us – putting American troops in danger...
Isn't that 'provoking fear'?
Pelosi said Democrats "have an unshakable commitment to catching, convicting and punishing terrorists who attack Americans." Is that the Democrat plan for protecting us I've been hearing about, punishing those who attack us? What's their plan for preventing those attacks? paraclete answered on 09/28/06:you want a plan for preventing the attacks, you just don't want to hear it.
Here's the plan, very simple and not too expensive, no new expenditure needed.
NUKE Damascus, Tehran, Cairo, Beruit, Addas Ababa, Mogadishu, Istanbul, Jakata, Islamabad, Baghdad, Ryidah, Mecca, did I leave any out, well there can be a second strike. As I said no new expenditure all the weapons needed are available for deployment immediately.
You know what you would get
An immediate end to the war in Iraq
thunderous applause from the rest of the world
But this plan is too audacious, even for Georgie baby | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 09/28/06 - TFAa Trans-Fatty Asses.
The NY Board of Health has begun the process of making the use of Trans-Fatty Acids illegal for use in restaurants. They unanimously passed a proposal banning the use of TFAs in restaurants in New York, and the proposal will be brought before lawmakers shortly.
All Hail the Nanny State of New York.
The basic concepts of free choice and personal responsibility are becoming endangered species in New York. And the majority of New Yorkers are (rather stupidly) going along with it. First came the Bloomberg smoking ban. Then Bloomberg's personal attack against gun ownership. Then there is the little-known "diabetes database" which is an effort to track diabetics and make sure they take their meds --- whether they want to or not. (Never mind that Diabetes isn't a communicable disease, and the only person hurt by not taking their meds is the diabedic.) And NYers seem to support these ideas.
What happened to the idea of taking responsibility for our own decisions. If I want to eat fatty fries or a Krispy Kreme doughnut, that's my choice. If I want to drink in a bar where smoking is permitted, that's my choice. If I refuse to take my medications for my non-communicable disease, that's MY CHOICE. And I have to live with the consequences of that choice. But why are so many people in favor of government regulation of these choices. (Notably, these are most often the same people who want the government to "stay out of their bedrooms" and "off their bodies" on the abortion and gay rights issues.)
What really gets me is that this ban on TFAs will have virtually no effect on the health of Americans in general or NYers in specific. It turns out that only about 2% of average caloric intake is from TFAs. And it doesn't address the issue of overall caloric intake, which is the real cause of obesity and a much greater contributor to heart disease than TFAs.
In fact, I suspect that if people believe that their fast food is healthier because of the removal of TFAs, they will actually eat more of it, and as a result they will get fatter and more prone to heart disease. Eliminating one specific (rather low-quantity) ingredient from our diets is NOT going to change our overall health. All it will do is make food taste different.
So in fact, the ban itself, while it might sound good in theory, is a useless jesture that serves only to increase the power of the Nanny State over the public... without any real benefit to the public.
So how do we fight this movement toward Nanny-Statehood? How do we get people to start taking responsibility for themselves instead of relying on corporations' warning lables and government agencies' regulations to keep them safe? How do we stop this trend toward Socialism and Big Government, and litigation/punishment of corporations for giving people what they want?
What's next? A ban on sugar? Meatless burgers? A soda prohibition?
Elliot paraclete answered on 09/28/06:look you go ahead and kill yourself if you want too, but why should I have to put up with your irresponsible behaviour | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 09/27/06 - Circular logic
Hello Wingers:
Here's how Bush says he's winning in Iraq.
Factually, Iraq didn't have any terrorists to begin with. Now there are plenty. Bush captured about 15,000 of 'em so far. And, the more he creates, the more he captures - giving credence to his claim that he's winning the war.
excon
PS> That's pronounced cir-QUE-ler in Bushspeak.
paraclete answered on 09/28/06:yoo! ex, we know wars are won by words, so it's logical, the more George says the greater the victory | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 09/27/06 - How to be a good liberal 18 WAYS TO BE A GOOD LIBERAL
1. You have to be against capital punishment, but support abortion on demand.
2. You have to believe that businesses create oppression and governments create prosperity.
3. You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are more of a threat than U.S. nuclear weapons technology in the hands of Iran or Chinese and North Korean communists.
4. You have to believe that there was no art before federal funding.
5. You have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by cyclical changes in the earth's climate and more affected by soccer moms driving SUV's.
6. You have to believe that gender roles are artificial, but being homosexual is natural.
7. You have to believe that the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of federal funding.
8. You have to believe that the same teacher who can't teach 4th-graders how to read is somehow qualified to teach those same kids about sex.
9. You have to believe that hunters don't care about nature, but PETA activists do.
10. You have to believe that self-esteem is more important than actually doing something to earn it.
11. Y ou have to believe that Mel Gibson spent $25 million of his own money to make "The Passion of the Christ" for financial gain only.
12. You have to believe the NRA is bad because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is good because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.
13. You have to believe that taxes are too low, but ATM fees are too high.
14. You have to believe that Margaret Sanger and Gloria Steinem are more important to American history than Thomas Jefferson, Gen. Robert E. Lee,and Thomas Edison.
15. You have to believe that standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas and set-asides are not.
16. You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried is because the right people haven't been in charge.
17. You have to believe that homosexual parades displaying drag queens and transvestites should be constitutionally protected, and manger scenes at Christmas should be illegal.
18. You have to believe that this message is a part of a vast, right-wing conspiracy.
GOD BLESS AMERICA
Oops, can't do that either...
paraclete answered on 09/28/06:"Good Conservative-Bad Liberal" Dichotomy
For over three decades the political right has practiced wedge politics, aggressively spinning language into Orwellian distortions and mind-bending inconsistencies, in efforts to silence and render irrelevant their political opposition. Framing issues to disempower historically marginalized groups, the right brands women "murderers" gays "pedophiles" immigrants "criminals" and public schools "unconstitutional and unbiblical." As occurred during the welfare reform debate, poverty and injustice are dismissed, and all problems attributed to the moral failure of women, minorities, gays and immigrants. On PBS "Think Tank" in 1996, Independence Institute fellow David Kopel pronounced gun control laws "dangerous" because they divert attention from welfare and single parenthood as the "primary cause of crime." Tom DeLay linked school shootings to birth control, small families, daycare, working women, evolution, the absence of prescribed school prayer, etc. Blanket indictments of women and minorities for societal ills have historically served a dual purpose of oppressing women and minority groups, while preserving male/corporate dominance and prerogatives of behavior.
Scanning the radio dial on a California trip early in 2005, I heard Sen. Orrin Hatch railing against liberal money - large sums of cash allocated to liberal causes, by the likes of George Soros. He mocked liberal "inheritors of wealth" who "never worked a day in their lives." Hatch’s outburst marked a low in civil discourse that has been conspicuous for efforts to silence and demonize the political opposition. Corrupted language and distorted religion of contemporary culture wars are wielded as tools against disfavored groups, contributing to a vastly degraded public dialogue, and undermining democracy.
The "good conservative—evil liberal" dichotomy is an example of what Chris Berlet of the Research Policy Institute calls the ŗ D’s" - efforts to dehumanize, degrade and demonize liberals, toward silencing adversaries. The subversion of language and religion maligns civil rights gains and religious freedoms that exemplify liberalism at the heart of democracy. "Liberalism brought us a pact with the devil," proclaimed Newt Gingrich. Liberals "aided by Satan" have taken control of government, media and education, preaches Pat Robertson. Tolerance promoted by liberals has brought us a "downward moral slide," echoes Gary Bauer. Wrapping religion around their politics renders any disagreement an attack on the faithful.
Furthering linguistic treachery, ultraconservatives level charges of "class warfare" for any mention of huge tax breaks for the rich and increased tax burdens on the working class. Distorted populism that vilifies liberalism and government is traceable to the 1968 presidential campaign of George Wallace, who likewise, equated social change and civil rights advances with moral corruption. Overtly racist political ads that in the ‘70s south identified Democrats as the party of "high taxes, crime and domination by blacks," mutated into more subtle racism, as taxes have become code for minority-associated government programs. | | Question/Answer | | twelfth_imam asked on 09/26/06 - Free Press? Is the US media under the control of the White House? Newsweek features 'Losing Afghanistan' in international edition, celebrity photographer in U.S.
Muriel Kane - Raw Story research director
Published: Monday September 25, 2006
The United States edition of the October 2, 2006 issue of Newsweek features a radically different cover story from its International counterparts, RAW STORY has learned.
The cover of International editions, aimed at Europe, Asia, and Latin America, displays in large letters the title "LOSING AFGHANISTAN," along with an arresting photograph of an armed jihadi.
The cover of the United States edition, in contrast, is dedicated to celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz and is demurely captioned "My Life in Pictures."
The International cover story begins:
"You don't have to drive very far from Kabul these days to find the Taliban. In Ghazni province's Andar district, just over a two-hour trip from the capital on the main southern highway, a thin young man, dressed in brown and wearing a white prayer cap, stands by the roadside waiting for two NEWSWEEK correspondents. It is midday on the central Afghan plains, far from the jihadist-infested mountains to the east and west. Without speaking, the sentinel guides his visitors along a sandy horse trail toward a mud-brick village within sight of the highway. As they get closer a young Taliban fighter carrying a walkie-talkie and an AK-47 rifle pops out from behind a tree. He is manning an improvised explosive device, he explains, in case Afghan or U.S. troops try to enter the village."
The United Story cover story begins:
"Annie Leibovitz is tired and nursing a cold, and she' s just flown back to New York on the red-eye from Los Angeles, where she spent two days shooting Angelina Jolie for Vogue. Like so many of her photo sessions, there was nothing simple about it. 'I talked with Angelina before the shoot,' says Leibovitz, who's famous for her preparation. 'She felt like she was coming back from having the baby and she felt very sexy and ready to go.' ... There were 50 people on the set, and racks of clothes from the New York spring collections to be tried and styled."
The story aimed at the United States then goes on to discuss the difficulties Leibovitz had in photographing Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' infant. The International story continues with difficulties of a very different kind:
"In Ghazni and in six provinces to the south, and in other hot spots to the east, Karzai's government barely exists outside district towns. Hard-core Taliban forces have filled the void by infiltrating from the relatively lawless tribal areas of Pakistan where they had fled at the end of 2001. Once back inside Afghanistan these committed jihadist commanders and fighters, aided by key sympathizers who had remained behind, have raised hundreds, if not thousands, of new, local recruits, many for pay. They feed on the people's disillusion with the lack of economic progress, equity and stability that Karzai's government, NATO, Washington and the international community had promised.
"NATO officials say the Taliban seems to be flush with cash, thanks to the guerrillas' alliance with prosperous opium traffickers. The fighters are paid more than $5 a day—good money in Afghanistan, and at least twice what the new Afghan National Army's 30,000 soldiers receive."
=====
What / who is controlling what Americans are allowed to read in the land of the free?
Sensible answers please.
paraclete answered on 09/26/06:well what do you know, you have found out what we have been trying to tell you, you don't know the facts, you are not free but puppets | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 09/26/06 - Thanks again Mr. President Saturday I filled my ྎ Toyota pickup with gas at $2.14 per gallon - another 35 cents less than 2 weeks ago. I hear it's down to $1.97 in some places. Thanks Mr. President. No, you say? It's a conspiracy, you say? Some say...
Don't be fooled by low gas prices
I've done it. I've figured out how to bring gas prices down: Hold a national election where the political party in control might get its butt kicked...
So, why are gas prices here at home dropping faster than the sales of Ford SUVs?
I'll tell you why. Dick "Halliburton" Cheney.
Politics and the Price of Gas
In the midst of the back and forth on gas prices comes a new poll from Gallup that shows large numbers of the American public are skeptical about the timing of the cost cuts. Forty-two percent of the sample said that the Bush Administration had "deliberately manipulated the price of gasoline so that it would decrease before this fall's elections," while 53 percent said the price drop had nothing to do with the President.
Barrel of theories for gas-price slide
Retired farmer Jim Mohr, of Lexington, Ill., rattled off a tankful of reasons why pump prices may be falling, including the end of the summer travel season and the fact no major hurricanes have disrupted Gulf of Mexico output.
"But I think the big important reason is Republicans want to get elected," Mohr, 66, said while filling up for $2.17 a gallon. "They think getting the prices down is going to help get some more incumbents re-elected."
Fifty-three percent did not believe in this conspiracy theory, while 5 percent said they had no opinion.
Almost two-thirds of those who suspect President Bush intervened to bring down energy prices before Election Day are registered Democrats, according to Gallup.
Sounds like it's time to invest in Alcoa, as the demand for tinfoil hats is on the rise.
Conspiracy or not? Vote now...or just show me your hat if you'd like.paraclete answered on 09/26/06:Of course it's all a conspiracy, but who's behind the conspiracy, that's the question?
Who benefits from high oil prices, and whose favourite son started the war which caused the price spiral to begin. | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 09/25/06 - I am probably stepping over the PC line here... but this is too good to pass up.
The Hebrew word for "monkey" is "kof".
The Hebrew word for "cloud" is "anan"
Does that make Kofi Anan "The Monkey of the Clouds"?
Hey, I didn't make up the language. Don't shoot the messenger.
Elliot paraclete answered on 09/25/06:It's no worst Elliot than when I used to call aton an ass since his handle meant ass in hebrew, but you shouldn't do such things | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 09/24/06 - Terrorisim....
Hello again, wrongwingers:
Our intelligence services say the war in Iraq is causing terrorisim to SPREAD, instead of DECLINE!
What's up with that? Don't those guys watch FOX news?
excon
paraclete answered on 09/25/06:ex, get with the program it's all aBush plot to usher in one world government under the pretext that terrorism must be stamped out by force where ever it is seen. No one can do that unless they have universal authority, so the more terrorism grows the more Bush will gather partners untill they are all under his direction, zeig heil the fascist bush | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 09/23/06 - AMAZING:
* "A huge network of military tunnels has been discovered
in China. The network is the biggest found so far in China,
covering 300 square kilometres. The tunnels were
discovered in Hebei province 100 kilometers south of
Beijing. They consist of passageways linking large halls
capable of sheltering groups of warriors. (China Daily)
* Sahara, Africa: No less than 230 visible tunnels at least
ten feet high and twelve feet wide, have been discovered
between Sebha, the modern capital of the Fezzon, and the
oasis of Ghat on the Algerian border. They run an average
length of three miles – a total of 700 miles – not counting
those that are unknown. In places they run less than 20 feet
apart.
Considering the 100,000 graves found in the wadi, the
region must have been populous, which presupposes an
adequate and regular rainfall in the Sahara when the
tunnels were built several millennia ago.(James Welland,
Lost Worlds in Africa, Book 3)"
Source: archaeologyanswers.com
I wonder what's 'under the sands' of Iraq and Iran.
HANK
paraclete answered on 09/23/06:very interesting but why were they built? | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 09/22/06 - ILLEGALS:
I've always contended that U. S. corporations run the country and not Congress. I heard this a.m. that 56% of new employment this year has gone to ILLEGALS. This fact knocked out many chances for school kids, both High School and College, to get jobs this past Summer and those on Unemployment. This also effected some real LAZY PEOPLE who decided to do a day's work. Some employers pay cash to these employees to protect their identity. By doing this, they dodge paying State and Federal taxes.
This is slave labor. This is also criminal activity because the employees are in this Country illegally and the employers are defrauding our government, i.e. You and I.
What can we do about it? (Please don't mention voting or writing letters. Congressmen have large wastebaskets)
* PLease let me know if I am wrong about any aspect of my post. Thanks.
HANK
paraclete answered on 09/22/06:I was under the impression, no doubt created by the american white house press corp, that the US abolished slavery, although when is not absolutely certain. Given this american dictionary definition of slavery I doubt the conditions actually did exist for its abolition
slav·ery
Pronunciation: 'slA-v(&-)rE
Function: noun
1 : DRUDGERY, TOIL
2 : submission to a dominating influence
3 : the state of a person who is a chattel of another | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 09/18/06 - This must be driving the Mahdi-Hatter nuts . Anousheh Ansari was born 9/12/1966 Ansari witnessed the Iranian Revolution in 1979 as a young teenager. She emigrated to the United States in 1984 with her parents . She received her Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering and computer science at George Mason University and her master's degree at George Washington University.
Ansari began work at MCI after graduation, where she met her husband, Hamid Ansari. In 1993, she persuaded her husband and her brother-in-law Amir Ansari to co-found Telecom Technologies, Inc. using their savings just as a wave of deregulation hit the telecom industry. The company was acquired by Sonus Networks, Inc. in 2000. Ansari was listed in Fortune magazine's ൰ under 40" list in 2001 and honored by Working Woman magazine as the winner of the 2000 National Entrepreneurial Excellence award.
Prodea, the new Ansari business has announced the formation of a partnership with Space Adventures, Ltd. and the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation (FSA) to create a fleet of suborbital spaceflight vehicles (the Space Adventures Explorer) for global commercial use. Ansari is a member of the X Prize Foundation’s Vision Circle, as well as its Board of Trustees .
Ansari was in training as a backup for Daisuke Enomoto, a Japanese businessman for a Soyuz flight to the International Space Station. In August he was medically disqualified from flying the mission . Ansari was elevated to the prime crew.
Today she and the crew of the Soyez lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan .She became the first female space tourist, as well as the first female Muslim and the first Iranian in space. She has agreed to take part in several experiments for the European Space Agency ESA,even though she is technically only a space tourist .She will speak to students back on Earth. She has said that she hopes her trip will inspire Iranian girls to study science.
Ansari intended to wear the U.S. flag and the version of the Iranian flag that predated the 1979 Islamic Revolution, to honor the two countries that have contributed to her life But At the insistence of the Russian and U.S. governments, she is not wearing the Iranian flag.(she has told reporters that she will keep he flag stowed away in her gear). She was also asked, by Russian and US governments, not to make any political statements while on board the ISS. But her presence on the trip is statement enough .
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paraclete answered on 09/20/06:Do you think he actually acknowledges that woman exists? | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 09/19/06 - The Religion of Peace I have a few questions about the Islam, the so-called "religion of peace".
The Muslim world has been protesting for the past few days over the comments made by Pope Benedict XVI regarding Islam being a nation founded on violence. These protests have been extremely violent, and have resulted in a number of deaths, including the murders of Christians, destruction of churches, threats of global war and assassination of the Pope, burning of embassies, etc.
My questions are:
1) Doesn't this violent style of protest prove the Popes point about Islam being a violent religion?
2) I have heard several people say that violence and terrorism doesn't really represent all Muslims, and that nothing could ever represent all of Islam because there are so many differing oppinions within Islam. Yet, it has become clear to me that Islam shows great unity in its protests of the Pope. Whether the protests are violent or not, the Muslim world is pretty well united in condemning the Pope's remarks. So why are they unable to create the same unity to condemn terrorism?
3) Why is it that even when a few Muslim groups condemn violence, they do so with half-hearted condemnations, excuses, and with blame for others for causing the violence? Why can't they just issue a blanket condemnation of violence as a method of promoting Islam, without any caveats, excuses or blame? Something simple and straightforward like "We condemn violence by Muslims against anyone." No blaming America or Israel for the anger on the Muslim street that causes the terrorism. No excuses that they were offended by some offhand remark or ation. Just a blanket condemnation of violence by Muslims against anyone, no matter who.
4) In Israel, there is a strong and active "peace-now" movement. In the USA, the peace movement is quite vocal (perhaps too vocal). Australia's peace movement has been very active over the past several years. Europe seems to be made up of nothing but the peace movement. The UK opposition political parties seem to be part of the peace movement. But where is the Muslim peace movement? Why are Islamic countries the only ones that don't have an active peace movement agitating for world peace? Why is the so-called "religion of peace" so lacking in peace activists and peace-protestors? If violence is not supported by the majority of Muslims and doesn't represent the beliefs of the majority of Muslims, why aren't the majority of Muslims protesting in the streets (peacefully) against the terrorists and the rioters? Should we take their silence as tacit support of the violence, disinterest in the issues, or simply fear of reprecussions? And if it is fear of reprecussions, doesn't that mean that Islam has been hijacked by the jihadists, and really is no longer a religion of peace, but of violence and fear?
These are just a few questions based on my observations of the "religion of peace".
Elliot paraclete answered on 09/19/06:Elliot
The Pope was right, he made a historically correct statement. Islams ramapage was finally stopped and turned back but not before they had plunged the world into centuries of war. This is truely the devil's religion, trapping it's believers in endless ritual, war, and poverty.
From my observation the only time the various sects of Islam are united in their veiws is in violence, and the threat of violence. All my life I have heard some Muslim or other threating Jihad, calling for Jihad, or doing Jihad.
But the whole thing is a mismash of beliefs and contrary intrepretations of the ravings of a desert madman. Muhammed was not consistant in what he wrote in the Koran, creating a double minded religion which is supposedly at "peace" with it's believers, but at war with non believers, and yet the sunni and the shiite hate each other and both consider the sufi apostate. Left to their own devices in Iraq they would quickly tear each other apart. It took a Tsumani to stop the fighting in Indonesia.
The Muslims don't want peace, they cannot establish their caliphate by peacefull means | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 09/15/06 - So the Syrians are again an ally in the war ? NOT
Western intelligence sources are skeptical about official Syria reports of Monday's attack on the U.S. embassy in Damascus.
"The pattern is always the same," an intelligence source said. "A group of terrorists assault a Western installation. The Syrian forces come and kill all or most of them and the regime claims to be fighting terrorism."
On Monday, the Assad regime reported foiling an attack against the U.S. embassy in Damascus, the first such strike against American diplomats since 2000. The Interior Ministry said three of the four attackers were killed during a strike that included a car bombing, light weapons fire and rocket-propelled grenades.
The attackers were identified as Syrian nationals. On Wednesday, Syrian state television said the fourth attacker died of his wounds .[can't have inconvient prisoners around]
Western intelligence sources said the regime of President Bashar Assad has reported attacks on U.S. and other foreign targets in Syria by Islamic insurgents linked to Al Qaida. But the sources said no known group, including Al Qaida, has ever confirmed responsibility for the strikes.
"I do think that the Syrians reacted to this attack in a way that helped to secure our people and we very much appreciate that," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. "I think it's very early to try and speculate why this may have happened."
Syrian officials attributed the attack to a group named Jund Al Shams, which they said was linked to Al Qaida. But intelligence sources said Jund, also blamed for a June 2006 strike against Syrian state television and radio, has never been adopted by Al Qaida and appears to be a group aligned with Syrian intelligence.
The State Department does not maintain an ambassador in Damascus amid a decline in U.S.-Syrian relations. But intelligence sources said Syria has cooperated with the United States in the secret detention of Al Qaida insurgents captured in Afghanistan and the Middle East.
Western intelligence agencies continue to doubt reports of Al Qaida-aligned strikes on foreign targets in Syria.
No Americans were hurt in the morning attack, described as more professional than previous Islamic insurgency operations in Damascus. The incident was said to have lasted 20 minutes.http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/06/front2453992.092361111.html
That was yesterday .Today a Syrian official claimed that the US attacked it's own embassy. "Only the Americans can succeed in carrying out an attack just 200 meters from President [Bashar] Assad's residence in the most heavily guarded section of Syria."
Damn ! We conducted an attack in Syria and missed by 200 meters !! The most heavily guarded section of Syria. Now, is it more likely that foreigners (Americans ) could conduct an operation there just down the street from the Assad residence ... Or that someone with the local Govt. approval would be able to put something together .???
Or maybe Walid Phares at Conterintelligence blog offers a better explanation :
The strategic objective of the Assad regime today is to deter Washington from further pressures against Syria, in the form of the Hariri investigation, the US pressure through the Security Council to deploy forces along the borders with Lebanon and the American ongoing support to the anti-Syrian Government in Beirut. Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah axis is in dire need to "contain" Washington's pressures and gain time, as much possible of time. Why would they need time? Because they have to rearm Hezbollah, crumble the Lebanese Government, and face off with UN pressures on the nuclear. Syria has the marching orders to disorient the United States, and hence it adopted a twin approach.
a. "Allow" a Jihadist-type terror attack to take place against a US interest in Damascus. And how can that be possible? The seasoned experts on Syria knows all too well that the Assad Mukhabarat are in control of, or have "access" to the overwhelming Terrorist organizations in Syria and Lebanon. They've had thirty years of deep involvement to accomplish this take over. In addition to Shiia Hezbollah, Syria has a control, a remote-control of, or an access to Sunni Salafists groups, including networks that connects with al Qaeda. In short, Syria's intelligence services can prepare the ground to "persuade" Jihadists to strike at some point. The Jihadists have an ideological and strategic enmity with the US; the Assad regime has the ability to have the "mob" unleash attacks, in the same way the Baath regime of Syria has "allowed" thousands of Jihadists to cross the border to Iraq to kill US and coalition troops. Assad the father also "allowed" Jihadis to attack U.S and French interests in Lebanon during the 1980s. More recently, Assad "allowed' violent demonstrations to attack embassies in Damascus. Knowing that Syria's State police controls the country with an iron hand, these precedents are too bright to ignore. In today's apparatus two men dominate the Terror web from their security intelligence positions: Mohammed Nassif, the director of State Security and Ali Yunis, the assistant of Asaf Shawkat, the regime's security commander. Nassif and Yunis are the team that controls and connects with the Jihadist underworld in the Levant.
b. Stage the "protection" : After the operation happens, the regime allows some of their men to be killed in action against the "Terrorists." Obviously, this move will be hard to absorb by Western and American public psychologically. Maybe Hollywood movies writers can. In short (as an analytical projection) the regime "allowed" the operation to happen, "knew" it would happen, and let the security guards on the ground sacrifice themselves in the line of diplomatic duty.
The Dividends:
1. Sending a message to the U.S as follow: al Qaeda can strike you in our midst (Syria and Lebanon) and we can't do much about, except the classical protection once the "cells" would be about to engage or have already engaged. In short we are extending the measures under international laws, not more.
2. "But, can stop them." Meaning that our "powerful" intelligence and security agencies can go after these Terrorists (who aren't Syria's friends to start with) and "offer them to you," as we used to do in the good old days: We'd send Hezbollah to kill your Marines in Lebanon and allow the Salafists to kill the Marines again in Iraq, but at the same time we can do business with you and "protect your" embassies from the Terrorists we are harboring anyway. Yes a good Levantine maze.
3. Your public, via international media, "saw" that we are defending your embassy and have "lost" security guards while defending it. So what are you going to tell your public? That we, the Syrian regime, "are" the terrorists? It will look bad when after we sacrificed our men for your diplomats, your diplomats would call us Terrorists.
4. Secretary Rice "had" to issue a statement to "thanking" Syria. In Assad's mind, it would be an embarrassment for the U.S to attack Syria for being a harbor to Terrorism when Damascus has just being thanked for fighting those Terrorists. This, basically, would gain some more "time" for Assad. Enough time needed to:
5. Rearm Hezbollah, prepare attacks against UN and other multinational forces to come closer to the Syrian borders, and of course to allow the other pressures to recede.
6. Extra dividend: Unleash the school that supports "dialogue and friendship" with the Syrian regime in Washington to advance its arguments in this regard. (ahhh yes ...those useful idiots )
A question has been fusing in the media about Zawahiri's calls for the Levant Jihadists, including the Jund al Sham to attack targets in Syria and Lebanon. Are these video messages coordinated with Syria and Iran ? Clearly they are .
However the message that Syria is sending Washington is clear .It serves the Syrian regime well to remind the United States and Israel of the consequences that will ensue from the jihadist threat if the Assad government is toppled.
paraclete answered on 09/15/06:sorry can't say yes to you question. I can only say I doubt it, so the Syrians took out a couple of local terrorists and protected an embassy, surely this is only good police work | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 09/15/06 - Proxy Wars From The Belmont Club :
Nathan Sharansky relates a conversation he had with Vladimir Putin in 2000 at the Kremlin in an LA Times article:
"Imagine a sunny and beautiful day in a suburb of Manhattan," he [Putin] said. "An elderly man is tending to the roses in his small garden with his nephew visiting from Europe. Life seems perfectly normal. The following day, the nephew, carrying a suitcase, takes a train to Manhattan. Inside the suitcase is a nuclear bomb."
The threat, Putin explained to me a year before 9/11, was not from this or that country but from their terrorist proxies — aided and supported quietly by a sovereign state that doesn't want to get its hands dirty — who will perpetrate their attacks without a return address. This scenario became real when Al Qaeda plotted its 9/11 attacks from within Afghanistan and received support from the Taliban government. Then it happened again this summer, when Iran was allowed to wage a proxy war through Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and northern Israel.
One consequence of the politics of the last five yeas will be to ensure that such warnings will on no account be taken seriously. 'A sovereign state attacking America through proxies? Don't be ridiculous. Those are stories that neoconservatives tell. If there were secret links between terrorist enabling states and terrorists we would have found out.' Now whether such accusations were ever true in the past is immaterial. They won't be considered true in the future. Not because there is some physical or factual bar to its existence but a political prohibition of its utterance.
But the really harmful consequence of not recognizing proxy warfare and addressing it openly is that it creates a subterranean world of countermeasures. A black market in defense. The present war is one no one wants to know anything about; that polite society wants to pretend doesn't exist. Viewed from one angle the history of Western counterterrorism is the history of concealment, with counterterrorism nearly as well hidden as their quarry. It is about faceless groups of men in pursuit of even shadowier figures across a secret landscape. By day we live in genteel world where we speak deferentially of other cultures; listen politely to Amnesty International; pretend we believe in the United Nations; are aghast at the suggestion of asking a prisoner for more than his name, rank and serial number. But by night we sleep in a decaying jungle of creeping horrors, one in which a suitcase nuclear weapon is simply another grotesque, a nightmare which intrudes upon the waking world only in the ghostly setting of the Kremlin, as between an ex-spymaster and a former Zek. There we can somehow speak its name.
But how if Sharansky told Putin. "Yes, Vladimir. Imagine a wonderful dusk in Moscow, or Teheran, or Damascus. The work of the day is done; and strong, capable men lock their safes and wait for the limousines to carry them to the secret policeman's ball. There will be women, wine! Especially in Teheran there will be wine! And somewhere on those darkened streets a man may take a suitcase from a car and sets it very carefully in a bus station locker. Quietly. As if he were afraid to awaken something sleeping. Not from my country, Vladimir. But from some other, lawless country, one that doesn't want to get its hands dirty — who will perpetrate their attacks without a return address. What should we do about that Vladimir?"
The LA Times article concludes :
Hezbollah launches an unprovoked attack on Israel. It is clear that Hezbollah is a proxy of Iran. It is public knowledge that Hezbollah receives more than $100 million a year from the Iranian regime, as well as sophisticated weapons and training.
Yet Iran has paid no price for its proxy's actions. No military strikes on Iranian targets, no sanctions, no threat whatsoever to Iranian interests. On the contrary, in the wake of the war, there have been renewed calls in the democratic world to "engage" Iran.
Symptomatic of the moral myopia in the West is a farce worthy of Orwell: Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, under whom students were tortured after a 1999 crackdown at Tehran University and whose rule was marked by the continued stifling of dissent, spoke Sunday at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government on "Ethics of Tolerance in the Age of Violence."
The Iranian regime's intentions are clear. It calls for "wiping Israel off the map" and tells its followers to "imagine a world without America." It seeks to dominate the Middle East. By failing to hold Iran accountable for its brazen support of Hezbollah, the free world has undermined a central pillar in the war on terror and given the Iranian regime a huge weapon for achieving its ambitions. Now the mullahs know they can attack a democratic country with impunity.
Considering the apocalyptic fanaticism of Iran's leader, it is an open question whether the current regime in Tehran is capable of being deterred through the threat of mutually assured destruction. But given how the world has responded to Hezbollah, the point may be academic. For surely Iran would be better served by using proxies to wage a nuclear war against Israel. And if there is no accountability, why stop with Israel?
The road to a suitcase bomb in Tel Aviv, Paris or New York just got a whole lot shorter.
Simularily we have not ,and I lose confidence in this proposition daily ,held Iran accountable for the loss of US troops by their various proxy attacks on us since 1979 ,and particularily in the last few years in Iraq.
But yesterday Sen McCain led a group of 4 Republican Senators to further undermine our war effort. Sen.McCain asks you to enjoy your moral superiority while you can .
paraclete answered on 09/15/06:What I don't get is why politicians feel they must give terrorists ideas.
The war in Lebanon would have been no war at all had Israel not overreacted to Hezbollah kidnapping two soldiers. Sure it was a provacation, but to suggest it was planned in Iran has got to be sheer nonsence, It was a local fracas blown up into a war. Yes Iran armed Hezbollah and Hezbollah was prepared to use those weapons and the attempt to release the captured soldiers escalated into a war.
Beyond that it's all bull and bluster | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 09/14/06 - Tony Blair Going Out fighting If anyone thought that Tony Blair was going to quitely fade into the sunset ;his "poodle"tail tucked between his legs ,they are very much mistaken . Yesterday he hammered European Politicians and their "mad anti-Americanism" nonsense.
Blair said the world urgently needs the United States to help tackle the globe's most pressing problems.
"The danger is if they decide to pull up the drawbridge and disengage. We need them involved," Blair said, spelling out his political vision in a pamphlet published by The Foreign Policy Center think-tank.
"The strain of, frankly, anti-American feeling in parts of European politics is madness when set against the long-term interests of the world we believe in,"
This echoes the sentiment in a speech Blair made to the Aussie Parliment in March .
I love this guy ! He will surely be missed when he leaves office.
paraclete answered on 09/14/06:Are they doing it again in eurozone, perhaps we will see a cold war again, this time between eurozone and amerozone while those of us in asiazone reap the benefits | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 09/12/06 - HEWLETT - PACKARD:
"When you think of your own personal assets, chances are your home, car, and savings and investments come to mind. But what about your Social Security number (SSN), telephone records and your bank and credit card account numbers? To people known as “pretexters,” that information is a personal asset, too.
Pretexting is the practice of getting your personal information under false pretenses. Pretexters sell your information to people who may use it to get credit in your name, steal your assets, or to investigate or sue you. Pretexting is against the law."
Source: Federal Trade Commission
Are you following this story?
HANK
paraclete answered on 09/12/06:CAN'T IMAGINE WHAT THIS HAS TO DO WITH HEWLETT PACKARD however this is a real problem and you have to be very alert. Recently I have recieved emails bearing the logo and site identification of my bank asking me to reenter my account details under the pretext of protection of my accounts for online access.
of course, I didn't believe a word of it and reported it to my bank | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 09/12/06 - Dems fume over Iraq in Bush 9/11 speech Claim president refuses to give up partisanship
The Associated Press
Updated: 11:01 a.m. CT Sept 12, 2006
CAPITOL HILL - Some leading Democrats on Capitol Hill say President Bush shouldn't have used the memory of the Nine-Eleven attacks to defend the Iraq war.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid complains that "the American people deserved better." Reid says the president could've used the fifth anniversary of the terror attacks to reclaim what Reid calls a "sense of unity, purpose and patriotism" that came in 2001.
Senator Ted Kennedy says outright that Bush "should be ashamed" of giving a speech that "had nothing to do with Nine-Eleven." The veteran Massachusetts lawmaker says the anniversary wasn't the time to debate the president's Iraq policy.
And Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel, who oversees efforts to win Democratic control of the House, says Americans would've been glad had partisanship been a casualty of September Eleventh. Instead, Emanuel says it's "the one thing the president refuses to give up."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Politics is so confusing, Reid is calling for unity. What exactly has Reid done to promote unity?
Kennedy says "Bush should be ashamed." Has he forgotten his meltdowns this year and last?
Emanuel says Bush refuses to give up partisanship. When was the last time he - or any other Democrat - has given up partisanship? paraclete answered on 09/12/06:what I heard of his speech did nothing for me, now we have a war for civilisation, all I can say someone should sack his speech writer | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 09/11/06 - hey, where is everybody? where have you all gone, are you all hiding in case he does it again? paraclete answered on 09/12/06:yes Mat I was hiding out in my back yard bunker | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 09/12/06 - A FRIGHTENING THOUGHT:
Do you think Islam will recruit white Americans (Caucasians) to do its dirty work for large amounts of $$$? As most of us know, some people will sell their souls for 'a bottle of cheap Port wine.'
HANK
paraclete answered on 09/12/06:there are always mercenaries Hank but don't give them ideas, anyway they have plenty of cheap muslim fighters willing to throw their lives away | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 09/08/06 - An oldie but goodie Capitalism and Cows
TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM -- You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.
AN AMERICAN CORPORATION -- You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when the cow drops dead.
FRENCH CORPORATION -- You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.
A JAPANESE CORPORATION -- You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create clever cow cartoon images called Cowkimon(tm) and market them world-wide.
A GERMAN CORPORATION -- You have two cows. You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.
A BRITISH CORPORATION -- You have two cows. Both are mad.
AN ITALIAN CORPORATION -- You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You break for lunch.
A RUSSIAN CORPORATION -- You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 12 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.
A SWISS CORPORATION -- You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you. You charge others for storing them.
A HINDU CORPORATION -- You have two cows. You worship them.
A CHINESE CORPORATION -- You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported the numbers.
AN ARKANSAS CORPORATION -- You have two cows. That one on the left is kinda cute.
ENRON CORPORATION -- You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. Sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public buys your bull.
ARTHUR ANDERSON, LLC -- You have 2 cows. You shred all documents that Enron has any cows, take 2 cows from Enron for payment for consulting the cows, and attest that Enron has 9 cows.
paraclete answered on 09/09/06:all these cows and only one bull, must have been attested to by Price Waterhouse | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 09/08/06 - MULLAHS:
Do the mullahs possess the means to destroy Israel and America?
HANK
paraclete answered on 09/09/06:No they are dreamers too | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 09/08/06 - OUR FRIEND, TONY BLAIR:
Tony will 'take a hike' next May ... if not before. I'd like to see him venture to America and take up residency here. Then run for President when the law permits. Could this happen?
HANK
paraclete answered on 09/09/06:dream on | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 09/08/06 - Rights Hello:
Are the rights you enjoy given to you by a government or are they inalienable? In other words, is your right to be represented at trial given to you? Or do you own it by virtue of your birth?
Me??? I believe Thomas Jefferson. I believe our founding documents. I believe in the USA. I believe what this nation stands for.
You?
excon paraclete answered on 09/08/06:ex I don't have the problem, my rights are inalienable too, I can do what ever I want as long as it's legal and no one can do anything about it. These things are only ever a problem for those who want to push the boundries | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 09/07/06 - regarding the Pakistan treaty with North Waziristan President Musharraf, in a meeting with Afghan President Karzai boasted that the treaty was a good deal for the Afghanistan government.
“No militant activity, no training activity, they have accepted this,”...“This is the bottom line of the peace agreement.”
In fact much of the press is taking a positive spin on this.
Yesterday Pakistan took a big step towards ending the fighting in the lawless Waziristan region when it signed a peace deal with tribal leaders. The agreement commits local militants to halt attacks on both sides of the border.
In return Pakistan will reduce its military presence and compensate tribesmen whose relatives have been killed or whose properties have been damaged.
A key provision of the deal is that tribesmen will expel foreign fighters from the area. The region is believed to be a haven for al-Qaeda fighters and members of the former Taleban regime in Afghanistan. Without a base in Pakistan their operations could be seriously disrupted.
I honestly do not know how to take this . I would like it to be as positive as the Times UK states but there are reasons for me to believe that Musharraf,who's position in Pakistan is tenuous at best ,and has been to this point pressured to cooperate, may be being pressured by internal politics to jump ship.
Last month he ordered the killing of Baloch tribal leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti . Bugti and tribal army has been taking on the Pakistan Army since January 2005. Dec. of 2005 Musharraf was targetted by these rebels and 8 rockets were fired at him . They also targetted a helicopter with some of his general staff on it .He feared a protracted engagement because it could weaken his position with the Army so he ordered the execution to buy time but it may have been a monumental blunder on his part .
The tribal region has enourmous mineral and gas deposits and he does not want to lose it.The rebels have been attacking gas lines . And from an additional point of relevence ;the terrority is next to you know who........Iran .
The problem is that Bugti was a well respected leader of the tribe and his murder is not sitting well with them . There has been an independence movement in existence even before the British partition of the sub-continent , with 4 major rebellions since the 1950’s. Each insurrection was brutally suppressed by the government .The killing of Bugti set off a wave of unrest all across Pakistan recently.Every political party, even Musharraf’s own political allies, has condemned the killing. If he is going to have to suppress the unrest then he will need to 80,000 troops he has up in the ungovernable Waziristan.It appears to me that he is increasing being asked to make a choice to actively support the war on al-qaeda or to tend to his own hold on the country .It may just be that domestic considerations have won out .
Looking ahead ;there are elections in Pakistan next year . I am not certain he will allow them to take place and risk the possibility of jihadists gettng control of the country and it's many nuclear weapons .
The truce refers to the region as “The Islamic Emirate of Waziristan” .That about says it all in my book . He has ceded a section of Pakistan about the size of New Jersey to jihadistan . I do not believe that the tribal leaders will expel either the Taliban or al-qaeda. In addition the treaty states ;and he has put an exclamation point on this ;that Pakistan will not permit NATO forces to cross the border in hot persuit of Taliban fighters .
"On our side of the border there will be a total uprising if a foreigner enters that area," he said. "It's not possible at all, we will never allow any foreigners into that area . It's against the culture of the people there."
Yesterday I gave a response to Elliot about Iran and warned how the US appearance of weakness would influence fence sitters in the region . Here is proof positive of the danger.
paraclete answered on 09/07/06:don't you think it's a positive step to take the heat out of conflict. We know Muslims have long memories and so a tribal conflict will resurface but it's time for Pakistan to enjoy some of the fruits of its labours and have internal peace.
What does it matter that the Jihadists congregate in this place, at least we know where they are, they may as well be in prison | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 09/07/06 - Peace Mom ? Cindy Sheehad writes in her new book (or her ghost writer did ) that she has fantasies about going back in time to murder the baby GW Bush . Wonder if she was a creative consultant on Death of a President ? paraclete answered on 09/07/06:yes we would all like to have a time machine to undo the wrongs of the world, but you know how these things go, as the T said in T3, Judgement Day is inevietable.
Bush will pay for the death and carnage he unleashed on the world just as Osama will | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 09/07/06 - Inhumane and degrading
Hello:
Well, I'm not very smart. I didn't graduate from Harvard. I didn't graduate from High School. I been in the slam. I live in the underbelly of society.
Yet, I know what inhumane and degrading treatment is. How come the president don't know?
excon
paraclete answered on 09/07/06:he don't live where you do | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 09/07/06 - (In)Security September Rep Jim McDermott says,
"The Congress of the United States has reconvened in Washington, D.C., but don't expect Congress to legislate on behalf of the American people.
The Republican Party will spend the next 30 days trying to make you afraid. It is the Republican midterm election strategy.
For the rest of September, until the moment Republican leaders gavel the Congress into adjournment, Republican speakers will rise and implore the American people to be afraid.
Republicans will call it security, and every time they do, just remember they are speaking in code. Republicans really mean insecurity.
During September, Republicans will wield the gavel, but they will not make America safer.
We will not consider, much less pass, legislation to better protect our ports. We know what needs to be done, but Republicans are hard on rhetoric and soft on action.
Republicans are going to use their insecure code word so often that I hope Lou Dobbs, Jon Stewart, and others keep track, and remind people daily of how often Republicans are willing to talk, and how little they are willing to act.
After America was attacked on 9/11, the finest military on earth--- the United States Armed Forces--- was sent to Afghanistan to hunt down bin Laden and stop the Taliban. They did a magnificent job until U.S. soldiers were ordered to leave before the job was done. We don't have bin Laden and Afghanistan is looking more like Iraq every hour.
A Republican Administration is responsible for diverting our military, draining our treasury, destroying our credibility, and making America less safe.
The American people know that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, but the Administration denies the intelligence. Instead, the President mechanically recites his stay the course PR line.
The American people know we are off course and adrift in a sea of violence. U.S. soldiers are not fighting a war on terror in Iraq. They are targets in a civil war among Iraqis.
When Republicans parade to the rostrum to outdo each other in using their insecurity code word, think of how insecure our soldiers are.
Republicans keep saying things are getting better. That is disproved by their own Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, who ordered another 13,000 U.S. soldiers into Iraq recently. There are now 140,000 U.S. soldiers surrounded by civil war.
After 2,653 American lives lost, and 19,600 wounded Americans, the country deserves Democratic leadership that knows the Republican plan to stay the course is the most insecure plan for our soldiers, this nation, and the Iraqi people.
Republicans will spend the next 30 days trying to stay in power, nothing more. They will say their insecurity code word over and over, but they won't pass the recommendations of the bi-partisan 9/11 commission.
Republicans won't bring up immigration legislation intended to make our borders safer.
Republicans won't address reforms to make Social Security safer.
Republicans won't bring up legislation to end taxpayer subsidies for Big Oil, or launch a national campaign to end our addiction to oil.
Instead, Republicans will tell you to be afraid unless you pay through the nose at the pump, and Big Oil drills in every pristine environment left on the planet.
Republicans will tell you to be afraid for Social Security unless they give your benefits to Wall Street, so you might have holdings like Enron.
Republicans will tell you to be afraid unless they can mortgage America's 22nd century, so that today's super rich can just have more.
Republicans had their chance and squandered it, leaving the American people with monstrous debt.
Republicans had their chance and used it to divert America away from the real war on terror.
Republicans are calling this Security September.
Just remember to be afraid....afraid of what else Republicans will do if they remain in power after the November election."
#############################################
Newspeak:
War is Peace
Lies are Truth paraclete answered on 09/07/06:Yes be afraid, be very afraid that the Republicans and therefore George Bush might gain the acendency. From Bush's speech that would mean an attack on Iran | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 09/06/06 - Answers, Finally President Musharaff is negotiating with bin Laden so the Osama can have his own area of safety and comfort in wilderness Pakistan, safe from attack from domestic and foreign powers. :D Well, it is all clear now, in the past, Bush closed the FBI bin Laden office, and also stated that he didn't think much about bin Laden any more when asked. I think we can safely conclude that Bush hasn't been looking for bin Laden since Tora Bora, or shortly thereafter.
Also, Valerie Plame it has been revealed was working for the ***WHITE HOUSE*** as an undercover agent assigned to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. She found none, they ruined her career.
Today, Bush announced that we indeed have secret prisons and that the prisoners will be brought to Gitmo for trial. Gitmo recently underwent construction which included an execution chamber addition. This is in response to a Supreme Court decision that Bush couldn't hold people for an indeterminant time withoug a trial.
I feel much better now knowing the truth about this stuff. All the lies were really infuriating me.
I wonder if he is going to come clean about the War on Iraq? paraclete answered on 09/07/06:You don't really think you know the "truth"?
If you know anything, you know what they want you to know. | | Question/Answer | | Dark_Crow asked on 09/06/06 - Historically, which nations, Historically, which nations, in a descending order do you find wants to re-negotiate settlements after an agreement? I know that in my personal experience with foreigners (First year immigrants), the first would be Germans by birth, the second Dutch by birth and Indians by birth third. paraclete answered on 09/07/06:I think I have missed the point here, are you asking us which nationalities are unreliable? My response would be most of them | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 09/06/06 - An interesting analysis. GLOVES OFF ON IRAN
By JOHN PODHORETZ
September 6, 2006 -- GEORGE W. Bush just delivered what may be the most important speech of his presidency since he went before the United Nations on Sept. 12, 2002, and declared his intention to seek regime change in Iraq.
The time has come, the president all but said yesterday, to take the gloves off with Iran.
"The world's free nations will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon," he said flatly. He prefaced those words by saying that efforts were being made to find a diplomatic solution to the problem. Nonetheless, Bush has now said in the strongest sentence he has yet spoken on the matter that Iran will not go nuclear. He is unconditional about it.
In a carefully crafted speech, Bush laid out the parallels between the extremists of al Qaeda - Sunni Muslims - and the Shia extremists led by Iran. While they both use fiery rhetoric that may be easy to dismiss in certain quarters as an Islamic cultural affect, they are also uncommonly specific about their strategies and goals to achieve their aims.
Using captured documents, he showed how Osama bin Laden and the head of al Qaeda in Iraq have laid out with great precision their strategy to weaken and exhaust the United States and the free nations of the world - a strategy that is having some effect after three-plus hard years fighting in Iraq.
When discussing bin Laden's writings, Bush compared them to those of Lenin and Hitler a decade before they took power. The president pointed out: "History teaches that underestimating the words of evil and ambitious men is a terrible mistake." Then, almost immediately, he jumped from bin Laden to Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"Iran's leaders," he said, "have also declared their absolute hostility to America. Last October, Iran's president declared in a speech that some people ask - in his words - 'whether a world without the United States and Zionism can be achieved. I say that this goal is achievable.' Less than three months ago, Iran's president declared to America and other Western powers: 'Open your eyes and see the fate of Pharaoh. If you do not abandon the path of falsehood, your doomed destiny will be annihilation.' "
Bush continued: "Less than two months ago, [Ahmadinejad] warned: 'The anger of Muslims may reach an explosion point soon. If such a day comes, America and the West should know that the waves of the blast will not remain within the boundaries of our region.' He also delivered this message to the American people: 'If you would like to have good relations with the Iranian nation in the future, bow down before the greatness of the Iranian nation and surrender. If you don't accept to do this, the Iranian nation will force you to surrender and bow down.'"
Bush wants the world to understand that he sees the nation of Iran as different only in degree from bin Laden and the terrorists in Iraq, not different in kind. We are to take Ahmadinejad's rhetoric seriously. We are not to dismiss his threats as flowery rabble-rousing but as honest statements of intent.
And if you do that, then the conclusion is inescapable that the world must do everything it can to prevent Iran from joining the nuclear club. "Armed with nuclear weapons," Bush said, Islamic extremists "would blackmail the free world, and spread their ideologies of hate, and raise a mortal threat to the American people. If we allow them to do this, if we retreat from Iraq, if we don't uphold our duty to support those who are desirous to live in liberty, 50 years from now history will look back on our time with unforgiving clarity, and demand to know why we did not act. I'm not going to allow this to happen - and no future American president can allow it either."
So there it is. A week after Iran declared its intention to continue uranium enrichment, the president of the United States has said in no uncertain terms that it will be stopped - that the failure to stop it would lead history to judge him, us and the world in the harshest possible terms.
Like most people, I've presumed for the past few years that our commitment in Iraq and the extreme difficulty of targeting the proper sites had basically foreclosed a serious military option in Iran. Certainly the hesitant and cautious behavior of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the past few months suggested as much.
Now it seems to me that, barring a miraculous change of heart on the part of the Iranian regime, a military strike is all but inevitable. Bush himself will view his own presidency as a failure if he doesn't act.
So act he will.
jpodhoretz@gmail.com
-----------------------------
Do you think we are headed in the direction of military action in Iran, or is this just rhetorric. Remember, we are talking about GWB... not exactly a guy who is afraid to use the military.
I happen to agree with Podhoretz' analysis. Bush tends to mean what he says and say what he means. If he says that "The world's free nations will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon," the I am willing to guess that he means it.
What is your opinion?
paraclete answered on 09/06/06:He is very adventurist and certainly could force the issue, but to begin a full scale conflict in the region is lunacy.
By attacking Iran he gives the Iranian regime proof of what they say about America and brings public opinion to their side | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 09/05/06 - No worries... ...the latest al-Qaeda was just a demonstration of the softer side of terrorism reports al-AP.
Latest al-Qaida message seen as PR bid
By SALAH NASRAWI Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press
CAIRO, Egypt — The new al-Qaida video featuring an American calling for his countrymen to convert to Islam raised fears it signaled an imminent attack, but experts in the region said Sunday it is more likely a bid to soften the terror group's image.
Adam Yehiye Gadahn, a 28-year-old American who the FBI believes attended al-Qaida training camps in Pakistan and served as an al-Qaida translator, also urged U.S. soldiers to switch sides in the Iraq and Afghan wars.
He appeared in a 48-minute video that was posted Saturday on an Islamic militant Web site along with footage of al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, who gave only a brief introduction to Gadahn while also calling on Americans to convert to Islam.
There have been widespread reports that some Muslim religious figures strongly criticized al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden over the Sept. 11 attacks, saying he failed to follow directives in the Quran that require potential victims be warned that conversion to Islam could save them.
The criticism led to speculation after Gadahn's appearance that the Saturday video meant a warning was being issued and a new attack was imminent.
But experts discounted those fears.
"This is not a warning for an attack. It is rather a speech aimed at winning the Americans' sympathy and understanding," said Gamal Sultan, editor of the Islamic magazine Al Manar.
Columnist Mishari al-Thaydi of the London-based newspaper Asharq Al Awsat agreed, saying al-Qaida is trying to portray itself as a group with a religious mission, not a terrorist movement.
"They have always been accused of lacking a program, that they are just a bunch of zealots," al-Thaydi said. "People accuse them of forgetting the essence of Islam _ conversion of nonbelievers."
"By using this American," he added, "al-Zawahri is saying that he is a preacher and not a terrorist. He wants to take back the initiative which has been lost in the midst of terror."
Hani el-Sibaei, a former Egyptian militant who fought with al-Zawahri in Afghanistan and now lives in exile in London, said Gadahn's American roots make him the perfect spokesman.
"Al-Qaida uses him because he speaks their language and can convey the message better than others," said el-Sibaei.
It was the second time Gadahn appeared in a video with al-Zawahri. In a July 7 message marking the first anniversary of the terror attack on London commuters, Gadahn appeared briefly, saying no Muslim should "shed tears" for Westerners killed by al-Qaida attacks.
Some reports have identified Gadahn as al-Qaida's "propaganda chief," responsible for putting together the slick videos made by the group's al-Sahab media operation.
Thomas Hegghammer, a research fellow at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment who studies militant Islamic Internet sites and videos, said Gadahn "has been instrumental in the English-language productions" of al-Qaida.
"He has appeared on a few videos speaking himself, but you've also seen a few videos with speeches by bin Laden and al-Zawahri with subtitles in perfect English," Hegghammer said.
He said Gadahn was likely one of a very few Westerners in a senior position in al-Qaida _ if not the only one. "There are certainly Western converts who have played a role in militancy, but none who are that high up."
Hegghammer said Gadahn is "a remnant of the original al-Qaida" that has fragmented since the Sept. 11 attack into a loose network of cells.
"And I don't think there are many like him. That's why we've seen him many times," Hegghammer said. "The obvious advantage (of his appearances) is it makes headlines in the West. ... He is an asset to them, definitely. My guess is the Americans are extremely keen on capturing him."
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>>he failed to follow directives in the Quran that require potential victims be warned that conversion to Islam could save them.<<
And I thought Islam didn't teach violence. In spite of their effort to spin the softer side of al-Qaeda, this is a rather profound admission by al-AP. The "essence of Islam _ conversion of nonbelievers," apparently focuses on potential victims.
I reckon it should be comforting to know these Muslim "experts discounted those fears" of an imminent terrorist attack on those potential victims.
Comments? Come on now, tell me how Islam is a religion of peace again... paraclete answered on 09/06/06:There is only one answer to Islam. Sadly, a lot of people will die, but then a lot of people will die anyway, it's just a question of who; Islamic or non Islamic.
The only thing these people appear to understand is violence and terror, so the only way to speak to them is in the same terms. Sixty years ago there was a people who had a similar mindset, it took atomic bombs to shake them loose from that mindset, and I suspect it will take the same to shake the arabs loose from their mindset of violence. They need aproposition they cannot refuse.
Target's. start with Mecca and follow with each islamic capital Tehran, Damascus, Addis Ababa, it's doubtful you would need to go much further before they would turn their fury on the militants and clean house themselves | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 09/05/06 - Rummy More Chamberlain than Churchill Frank Rich on Rumsfeld: "More Chamberlain Than Churchill"
New York Times | Mother Jones | Posted Sunday September 3, 2006 at 08:24 PM
"Frank Rich turns a scathing eye on Donald Rumsfeld this week, writing an op-ed that Bush won't read about a guy Bush won't fire. Still, it needs to be said. Rich magnanimously declared that Rummy had outdone his previous gems of "stuff happens" and "you go to war with the Army you have" with his latest comparison of Iraq war critics to appeasers of the Nazis in the 1930s. Rich reminds Rumsfeld that he has a long memory, aided and abetted by the Internet:
Here's how brazen Mr. Rumsfeld was when he invoked Hitler's appeasers to score his cheap points: Since Hitler was photographed warmly shaking Neville Chamberlain's hand at Munich in 1938, the only image that comes close to matching it in ***epochal obsequiousness*** is the December 1983 photograph of Mr. Rumsfeld himself in Baghdad, warmly shaking the hand of Saddam Hussein in full fascist regalia. Is the defense secretary so self-deluded that he thought no one would remember a picture so easily Googled on the Web? Or worse, is he just too shameless to care?
Rich notes that Rumsfeld was singularly lacking in tough talk back in that 1983 visit...."
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think we have all seen that picture of Rummy shaking Saddam's hand....look it up if your memory fails.
How long do you think Rumsfeld has left on the job? paraclete answered on 09/06/06:Rummy is a survivor, he's been around a long time, and dispite the taints, seems to rise in power and influence. What's his next move, do you think, could it be number one spot on the party ticket? | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 09/05/06 - Sailboats
Hello:
I bought a pool table for my boat. However, my balls don’t stay still. How do I keep my balls from moving about?
excon
paraclete answered on 09/06/06:that must be a big boat, ex. If I remember correctly the way to keep things still on a boat is to suspend them from the ceiling, so make a mobile out of your table and balls | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 09/04/06 - POLITICIANS:
The misconduct of politicians is not always voluntary. It happens frequently as an unavoidable consequence of their particular situation. Therefore, one inconvenience is generally the offspring of another.
Any comments?
HANK
paraclete answered on 09/04/06:the misconduct of politicians is due to lack of ethics and the misconception that they serve themselves first and the people second | | Question/Answer | | Dark_Crow asked on 09/03/06 - the Koran............................................ Does the Koran expressly say that the Holy Land is given by the Lord to the Jews for their dominion? paraclete answered on 09/04/06:I think you will find this is what the muslims rely on
[33.27] And He made you heirs to their land and their dwellings and their property, and (to) a land which you have not yet trodden, and Allah has power over all things. | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 09/03/06 - War's Converge!!!
Hello experts:
Afghanistan’s opium harvest this year has reached the highest levels ever recorded. The drug war and the war in Afghanistan have merged, and we're losing them both........
No???
excon
paraclete answered on 09/03/06:I agree excon, George Bush's adventurist policies have created a bonanza for the drug cartells because they open up what had been restricted before, If america was truely interested in pursuing the drug war they would have put save guards in place in Afganistan. What I see here is an administration or is it a nation, who are incrediably niaive | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 09/03/06 - Convert, or else Sat Sep 2, 2006 9:06 PM BST
By Heba Kandil
DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda called on U.S. President George W. Bush and non-Muslims especially in the United States to convert to Islam and abandon their 'misguided' ways or else suffer the consequences, according to a video posted on a Web site on Saturday.
The speaker was identified as Azzam the American, also known as Adam Yahiye Gadahn -- an Islamic convert from California wanted for questioning by the FBI and who U.S. authorities believe to be involved in a "propaganda" campaign for al Qaeda.
"If the Zionist crusader missionaries of hate and counter-Islam consultants like ... the crusader and chief George W. Bush were to abandon their unbelief and repent and enter into the light of Islam and turn their swords against the enemies of God, it would be accepted of them and they would be our brothers in Islam," Gadahn said in English.
"To Americans and the rest of Christendom we say, either repent (your) misguided ways and enter into the light of truth or keep your poison to yourself and suffer the consequences in this world and the next."
Al Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri made a brief statement at the start of the tape urging viewers to listen carefully to the message, entitled: "An Invitation to Islam".
"Our brother Azzam the American is speaking to you out of pity for the fate that awaits (unbelievers) and as someone who wants to lift his people out of darkness and into the light," Zawahri said.
Zawahri, like Osama bin Laden and other leaders of al Qaeda -- the group that masterminded the September 11 attacks on the United States -- is thought to be hiding in Pakistan or Afghanistan.
Zawahri and Gadahn appeared to be speaking from different places, as Zawahri spoke in front of a black background.
The tape was dated September 2006 and appeared to have been recorded recently as Gadahn referred to Israel's war on Lebanon.
Gadahn appeared in the video dressed in a white turban and seated in front of a computer and books.
"But whatever you do don't attempt to spread your misery and misguidance to our lands," he said. The video carried Arabic subtitles of his English message.
FAITH AND JIHAD
Gadahn recited verses from the Muslim holy book the Koran in Arabic, then translated them into English and said Muslims needed to boost their faith to expel their countries' rulers.
"Muslims don't need democracy to rid themselves of their home grown despots and tyrants. What they do need is their Islamic faith, the sprit of jihad and the lifting of foreign troops and interference from their necks," he said, adding that God did not recognise a separation of religion and state.
"Those who think that democracy is synonymous with freedom are either people who haven't experienced life in America or Americans who haven't lived abroad."
Zawahri last appeared in a video in August in which he said that some leaders of Egypt's Gama'a Islamiya have joined al Qaeda. Gama'a Islamiya later denied his statement.
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He aslo reportedly said "Decide today, because today could be your last day."
Can anyone say "I told you so"? I can... paraclete answered on 09/03/06:the jihadists dream on has they try to justify their carnage. In their scheme of things america has been asked to convert and non compliance makes every american fair game, they will now be considered infidels, (if they weren't already) and every muslims has a holy task to kill them. This is why I said all along, it is a problem of a small minority but a problem of a killer religion bent on destroying everything in its path. Every Muslim is a potential fifth column in western society because their allegience is first to their religion and second to their country. They have made their agenda known and it's time to take the fight to them on every level | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 09/01/06 - Priorities Hello:
Let’s say that you have cancer. You also have an ingrown toenail. Your medical budget is fixed. You spend %45 of your money on cancer treatment, and you spend %55 on the toenail.
Is that good?
excon
PS> For those not medically inclined, pretend cancer is Osama or Akminijad, and the ingrown toenail is Saddam. paraclete answered on 09/01/06:The ingrown toenal you can put up with and you can deal with that problem regularly with a large pair of surgical clippers, but the cancer will kill you.
It is no different with Osama and Saddam, left at large Osama will continue to devise plans, and the cancer is spreading, but your analogy is wrong they were both tumors, Saddam large and somewhat benign like a large wart which annoys you, and Osama is like a tumor on the adrenial gland, very well hidden and the sourse of some very strange symptoms or a melanomia which is obvious for years and suddenly turns lethal | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 09/01/06 - Hezbollah's 'Victory' By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, September 1, 2006; A21
"We did not think, even 1 percent, that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude. You ask me, if I had known on July 11 . . . that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not."
-- Hasan Nasrallah,
Hezbollah leader, Aug. 27
So much for the "strategic and historic victory" Nasrallah had claimed less than two weeks earlier. What real victor declares that, had he known, he would not have started the war that ended in triumph?
Nasrallah's admission, vastly underplayed in the West, makes clear what the Lebanese already knew. Hezbollah may have won the propaganda war, but on the ground it lost. Badly.
True, under the inept and indecisive leadership of Ehud Olmert, Israel did miss the opportunity to militarily destroy Hezbollah and make it a non-factor in Israel's security, Lebanon's politics and Iran's foreign policy. Nonetheless, Hezbollah was seriously hurt. It lost hundreds of its best fighters. A deeply entrenched infrastructure on Israel's border is in ruins. The great hero has had to go so deep into hiding that Nasrallah has been called "the underground mullah."
Most important, Hezbollah's political gains within Lebanon during the war have proved illusory. As the dust settles, the Lebanese are furious at Hezbollah for provoking a war that brought them nothing but devastation -- and then crowing about victory amid the ruins.
The Western media were once again taken in by the mystique of the "Arab street." The mob came out to cheer Hezbollah for raining rockets on Israel -- surprise! -- and the Arab governments that had initially criticized Hezbollah went conveniently silent. Now that the mob has gone home, Hezbollah is under renewed attack -- in newspapers in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt, as well as by many Lebanese, including influential Shiite academics and clan leaders. The Arabs know where their interests lie. And they do not lie with a Shiite militia that fights for Iran.
Even before the devastation, Hezbollah in the last election garnered only about 20 percent of the vote, hardly a mandate. Hezbollah has guns, however, and that is the source of its power. But now even that is threatened. Hence Nasrallah's admission. He knows that Lebanon, however weak its army, has a deep desire to disarm him and that the arrival of Europeans in force, however weak their mandate, will make impossible the rebuilding of the vast Maginot Line he spent six years constructing.
Which is why the expected Round Two will, in fact, not happen. Hezbollah is in no position, either militarily or politically, for another round. Nasrallah's admission that the war was a mistake is an implicit pledge not to repeat it, lest he be completely finished as a Lebanese political figure.
The Lebanese know that Israel bombed easy-to-repair airport runways when it could have destroyed the new airport terminal and set Lebanon back 10 years. The Lebanese know that Israel attacked the Hezbollah TV towers when it could have pulverized Beirut's power grid, a billion-dollar reconstruction. The Lebanese know that the next time, Israel's leadership will hardly be as hesitant and restrained. Hezbollah dares not risk that next time.
Even more important is the shift once again in the internal Lebanese balance of power. With Nasrallah weakened, the other major factions are closing in around him. Even his major Christian ally, Michel Aoun, has called for Hezbollah's disarmament. The March 14 democratic movement has regained the upper hand and, with outside help, could marginalize Hezbollah.
In a country this weak, outsiders can be decisive. A strong European presence in the south, serious U.S. training and equipment for the Lebanese army, and relentless pressure at the United Nations can tip the balance. We should be especially aggressive at the United Nations in pursuing the investigation of Syria for the murder of Rafiq Hariri and in implementing resolutions mandating the disarmament of Hezbollah.
It was just 18 months ago that the democrats of the March 14 movement expelled Syria from Lebanon and rose to power, marking the apogee of the U.S. democratization project in the region. Nasrallah's temporary rise during the just-finished war marked that project's nadir. Nasrallah's crowing added to the general despair in Washington about a rising "Shiite crescent" stretching from Tehran to Beirut.
In fact, Hezbollah was seriously set back, as was Iran. In the Middle East, however, promising moments pass quickly. This one needs to be seized. We must pretend that Security Council Resolution 1701 was meant to be implemented and exert unrelieved pressure on behalf of those Lebanese -- a large majority -- who want to do the implementing.
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Where is the media on this? I hadn't heard a word about Nasrallah's mea culpa until I read this column today. They were quick to jump on the Hezbollah bandwagon, following the propagandists and their staged photo ops, where are they now that Lebanon could use a little saturation coverage on such a monumental revelation? paraclete answered on 09/01/06:The media is only interested in Blood, not words and there has been plenty of blood in Iraq to draw their attention this week. What good is writting about someone you can't interview, doesn't make very good copy. No the little scap in southern Lebanon is over for the moment and the politicians are now basking in the glory of their non existant "solution" | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 09/01/06 - George and Muhammod
Hello:
Let's say George was riding around Texas on his horse, when he came upon Muhammod riding around on his camel. The two sat down to do some horse/camel trading. Who do you think would wind up with the lions share?
excon
PS> When it's all over, I think George would wind up picking up camel dung.
I don't like Arab's - not even a little bit. But, I sure think they're wayyyyy smarter than we are right now.
excon
paraclete answered on 09/01/06:who would trade a horse for a camel, only an arab | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 08/31/06 - US: Support for Britain, Canada and Israel Heard this on the way home...
WASHINGTON- Americans' support of Israel continues to be high despite, or perhaps even because of, the war in Lebanon, a new poll published Wednesday in the United States revealed.
From the results it emerges that Israel is ranked in third on the support scale, after Britain and Canada.
The Polling Institute of Quinnipiac University in Connecticut asked Americans to rank 15 countries, as well as the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations, on a scale of zero to 100. The results: Britain received 78.3 points out of 100, Canada, America's northern neighbor, received 71.7 points in second place, and after it, Israel in third place with 65.9 points. India was ranked fourth with 53.4 points, and after it, Mexico, with 51.4 points.
In contrast with the support of Israel, the Palestinians, Syrians, and Iranians lost points after the war in Lebanon. Among the last on the list, the Palestinians cash in with 22.8, with Syria trailing not far behind with 21.7 points. The very last on the list were North Korea with 15 points and Iran with only 13.9 points.
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As this article shows, support for Israel among Americans is on the rise.
My take? In spite of all the incoherent rhetoric from the pundits and the moonbats, Americans get it.
And you? paraclete answered on 09/01/06:This is obviously one of those meaningless PR exercises carried out with a specific intention of demonstrating a specific block of public opinion. So it's good that americans support Israel but concerning that there is any level of support for the Palistinians who cheer anytime america gets kicked in the guts.
American politicians should be concerned at the level of support expressed for america's enemies. These are not insignificant numbers. | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 09/01/06 - JUST WONDERING ...
... if our troops in the Middle East have been trained in guerilla warfare.
HANK
paraclete answered on 09/01/06:highly unlikely hank, of course special forces would have such training but arn't many of your troops your guard units who are weekend soldiers? | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 08/31/06 - Bush polls It is a demonstrated fact that the popularity of the President rises and falls depending on the price of gasoline . See this graph for illustration .
The meme on the networks and cable casts is that Republicans are opting out of inviting the President to come to their States and campaign with them. I think that is a bad call on their part .
With gas prices falling ;and the prospect is for them to continue to fall throughout the Autumn baring some idiocy from the Mahdi-hatter ,I think they should reconsider .
Many Democrats plan on highlighting gas prices to try and get elected, though none can say what they would do to change the way the market is structured to improve prices.
Their only answer is 'Cater-esque' as in forcing people into tiny cars.
Must be a Rovian Cheney conspiracy to steal the elections again . paraclete answered on 08/31/06:Hey smaller cars are a great idea, you don't need an RV to go grocery shopping, it isn't darkest Africa, and how about a little social responsibilty and reducing demand which will help to lower prices. If you want change, change starts with you. Billions of people throughout the world get by in vehicles which are smaller and more fuel efficient and for most trips they are adequate, particularly if there is only one passenger. People will be forced into smaller vehicles because the car companies have refused to tackle the fuel efficiency problem, not just because of some politicacl rhetoric | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 08/31/06 - It's 300 PM in Turtle Bay .... Iran and the mad mullahs are now officially in material breech of UNSC Resolution 1696 . Waiting for the UNSC to slap Iran upside the turban with chapter 7 sanctions ...................................
still waiting ...................................
paraclete answered on 08/31/06:You know how slowwwwwwwwwwly diplomacy works Tom, it's not going to happen anytime soon | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 08/30/06 - Lost opportunity at Diwaniyah There was a fierce battle going on in the Iraqi city of Diwaniyah between principly the Iraqi
Army 8th Division and elements of what was later described as "rogue break away elements (read Iranian surrogates if not Iranian regulars )of the Mookie Sadr Mahdi Army .Mahdi Army troops captured two neighborhoods in Diwaniyah,. The army responded by sealing the town and raiding three neighborhoods controlled by the Mahdi. The Army took back all the territory lost but as usual when the going got tough the militia terrorists were able to secure a cease fire ....but not before they were able to blow another hole in the oil pipeline there. Read this as ANOTHER time the enemy was on the ropes and the politicians let them off .
paraclete answered on 08/30/06:when you are in bed with the enemy, you can't allow them to suffer defeat | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 08/30/06 - ISLAMO-THEISM The Bush Propaganda and Noise Machine had a tough decision naming the religious terrorists. They are Islamo-Theists but, of course, that moniker was a no-starter. There was no way that the Bush Christian Republican Theist Party could use the word Islamo-Theists; it would remind every American that Bush was running a Theist Party of his own. A Theist Party that was attempting to turn the American Government into a virtual Dictatorship, a Fascist-Corporate State.
The solution, the same as all the Propaganda put out by the Bush Crime Family....call your opponents WHAT YOU ARE! Usurp the word.
That is the genesis of the incorrect term Islamofascists.
CORRECTLY, THEY ARE ISLAMO-THEISTS. paraclete answered on 08/30/06:No you have it wrong they are amerofascists and islamocultists | | Question/Answer | | MarySusan asked on 08/29/06 - Alternate Thinking About Terrorists There is one theory that 911 was Bin Laden's plan to scare America in to removing their troops and bases from the Islamic Holy Land.....there are now only 300 American soldiers there, and Bush said in a televised appearance some time ago when asked about Osama, "I dont' think about him any more"...we closed our Bin Laden office in the FBI....Bin Laden's mission accomplished?
AlQuaeda is splintered into various groups, the centralized leadership decimated...Bin Laden and the good Dr from Egypt making occasional television appearances.
We see the results of the Lebanon War. Israel was severely beaten because they couldn't FINISH OFF SUCH A PRIMITIVE, fighting force with sophisticated air power and weapons, an army of trained soldiers, a superior intelligence force.
I see no way to defeat terrorism by force and violence. Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanista has proven that.
Time for some serious thinking about American foreign policy. Note: nothing in the world will solve the violence problems between Jews and Palestineans. The reason, they are *both correct* in their reasons for the existence or non-existence of Israel.
Terrorism of all kinds has always been with us, and it will go on into the future, hopefully at a lesser pace, so time for creative approaches and super espionage and intelligence and police work to lessen the death.
Any comments? paraclete answered on 08/30/06:1. The Palistinians are not correct in their thinking about the right of Israel to exist. The creation of Israel was sanctioned and sponsored by the UN. It exists, It has the right to exist.
2.Palistine on the other hand is not a nation and if a sanctioned Palistinian state exists it is Jordan. The Palistinians are trying to have their cake and eat it too. Sure they want the West Bank back, but to give it nation status will only create the possibilty of another failed state in the ME.
3.American foreign policy is focused on domination and expansion and yes it does need revision. We cannot have a war every time america disagrees with some other state.
It was american foreign policy which caused the Japanese attack in WWII, the Chinese attack in Korea, the escalation of the Vietnam war, Bin Laden's attack on 9/11, all directed against america. Ask yourself why. | | Question/Answer | | Dark_Crow asked on 08/29/06 - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad challenged President Bush.. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad challenged President Bush to a televised debate on world issues today. Of course I would like to see such a debate but another thing he said was that the veto right in the UN Security Council was a problem in that, it is an insult to the dignity, independence, freedom and sovereignty of the nations that do not enjoy that right. Do you suppose that that is part of why the UN fails so often? paraclete answered on 08/29/06:sounds like a great idea so long as it isn't an opportunity for more Muslim diatribe. As to the UN, it was set up to fail, to be impotent | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 08/28/06 - How to Negotiate with Terrorists How To Negotiate With Terrorists
This brief blog entry takes you through a series of negotiations over time between peacemakers and terrorists:
A peacemaker walks up to the left side of a line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker introduces himself. The terrorist kills him.
A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker asks, "why did you kill my friend?" The terrorist kills him and rapes his wife.
A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker says, "Stop that!" The terrorist kills him, rapes his daughter and kills his wife.
A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker says, "I'll pay you $1000 if you stop attacking us." The terrorist agrees to the deal, takes the $1000, and kills him.
A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker appeals to the United Nations. The United Nations says the peacemaker is at fault. The terrorist kills him.
A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker now has a gun, and threatens to use it. Other peacemakers start chanting the old 60's whine, "Can't we all just get along?" The peacemaker
hesitates. The terrorist kills him.
A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker tries to convince his peacemaker friends that the terrorists aren't going to respond to negotiations, but they insist that if he kills the
terrorist it'll just make the other terrorists mad. The peacemaker reluctantly agrees to try negotiating again. The terrorist kills him., his entire family, and his neighbor's family.
A heated debate now ensues between the peacemakers who want to be nice to the terrorists and the peacemakers who believe that there can never be peace until the terrorists are all dead. While they
are debating, the terrorists kill 15 more peacemakers.
A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker asks himself, "Which is more important: being liked by everyone, or protecting my family?" The terrorist pulls a knife to kill the peacemaker, but the peacemaker pulls a gun and kills the terrorist
first. The United Nations condemns the peacemaker's use of unproportional force. Many of his peacemaker friends turn against him.
A peacemaker walks up to the left side of the line. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line. The peacemaker apologizes for what his friend did to the other terrorist. The terrorist kills him, his entire family and his neighbors, and threatens to destroy
the city as soon as they develop a bigger weapon.
A peacemaker refuses to meet at the line because every time a peacemaker goes to the line the terrorist kills him. A terrorist walks up to the right side of the line and fires rockets into the
peacemaker's town. The United Nations condemns the way the peacemaker provoked the terrorist by refusing to come to the line and meet with him.
Generations pass and not much changes until one day when the son of a peacemaker decides that the old strategy simply won't work. He walks up to the left side of the line a little early. As the terrorist approaches the right side of the line the peacemaker
shoots him. Another terrorist approaches to replace the first, and the peacemaker shoots him too. This scene plays out several more times. Then a terrorist approaches carrying a white flag, but he also has weapons. The peacemaker shoots him. A terrorist next
approaches with a cease fire resolution from the U.N. The peacemaker shoots him also. A large group of terrorists approach and the peacemaker shoots them all and drops a nuclear bomb on the city they came from. The peacemaker continues killing the
terrorists until the terrorists are all dead.
There is finally peace on earth and the United Nations takes the credit.
paraclete answered on 08/28/06:You forgot to add the peacemakers must now evacuate the country because of radioactive piosoning and birth defects in their children | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 08/26/06 - Chinese police end funeral striptease acts Performances meant to increase attendance in order to honour the deceased
Official hotline set up for 'funeral misdeeds'
Aug. 23, 2006. 12:04 PM
REUTERS
BEIJING — Striptease send-offs at funerals may become a thing of the past in east China after five people were arrested for organising the intimate farewells, state media reported today.
Police swooped last week after two groups of strippers gave "obscene performances" at a farmer's funeral in Donghai County, Jiangsu province, Xinhua news agency said.
The disrobing served a higher purpose, the report noted.
"Striptease used to be a common practice at funerals in Donghai's rural areas to allure viewers," it said. "Local villagers believe that the more people who attend the funeral, the more the dead person is honoured".
Wealthy families often employed two troupes of performers to attract a crowd. Two hundred showed up at last week's funeral.
Five strippers were detained and local officials "issued notices concerning funeral management", Xinhua said.
Now village officials must submit plans for funerals within 12 hours after a villager dies. And residents can report "funeral misdeeds" on a hotline, the report said.
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Now THAT'S a sendoff... paraclete answered on 08/26/06:those wakes just arn't going to be fun anymore | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 08/26/06 - Taxpayers paying for soldiers' breast, nose jobs Associated Press
Aug. 25, 2006 07:10 AM
CANBERRA, Australia - Australian soldiers are indulging in expensive cosmetic surgery - including breast enlargements, nose jobs and face lifts - at taxpayers' expense, according to media reports Friday.
Official Australian Defense Force policy states that personnel can undergo plastic surgery at public expense for medical or psychological reasons that threaten their ability to work.
An army cook underwent a nose reduction operation Wednesday, while female service personnel have had breast enlargements after claiming that depression and poor confidence were hurting their work, News Ltd. newspapers reported.
Defense Minister Brendan Nelson said Friday he has ordered an investigation.
Cosmetic surgery consultant Pamela Noon told the newspapers her business has performed surgeries on six military personnel in the past year.
"While a feature might affect somebody's self-confidence, I can't see how it would help their ability to protect the country," Noon was quoted as saying.
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Breast enlargements? Interesting way to beef up your body armor... paraclete answered on 08/26/06:Now I would have thought soldiers were people too, but the question is, do we want soldiers who are wimps | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 08/23/06 - The French Double-Cross From National Review online.
August 22, 2006, 6:05 a.m.
You’ll Never Confuse George W. Bush for a Frenchman
The world’s sole responsible power.
By Rich Lowry
The United States is not just the world’s sole superpower, it is the world’s only responsible power.
Consider the recent action related to a peacekeeping force taking control of southern Lebanon from Hezbollah. France initially agreed with the United States on a United Nations resolution creating an international force that would operate with robust rules of engagement to confront the terrorist guerrilla group. When the Arabs balked, France insisted that the rules of engagement be made considerably vaguer. Since France was going to lead the force, the U.S. deferred to Paris, which has subsequently said that it will contribute only 200 combat engineers to the force because ... the rules on engagement are so vague.
This is a spectacularly bald-faced diplomatic double-cross that makes one wonder if Secretary of State Condi Rice was wearing a “Kick Me” sign when she voted for the resolution in New York. It sinks any hope of a lasting settlement in southern Lebanon and further undermines the credibility of the United Nations. But the French don’t care. They were able to serve their political purposes in the Middle East by triangulating between the United States and the Arabs. Consequences be damned.
Say what you will about the efficacy or delicacy of U.S. foreign policy, this is cynicism, bad faith, and rank selfishness of which America is almost incapable as a world power. Indeed, in our willingness serially to believe the unreliable assurances of the French, we are an innocent abroad. First, they snookered us three years ago into believing that they wouldn’t kick up trouble for us at the U.N. in the event Saddam Hussein didn’t fully comply with his disarmament obligations. Now, we have been played the fool in Lebanon.
The root of our seeming naïveté is the earnest desire to deal with world problems. Saddam was a menace, but France and Germany were content to play diplomatic and political games at our expense. Southern Lebanon is, as we have seen in recent weeks, a deep source of instability in the region. The U.S. wanted to craft a long-term solution, but since we weren’t going to send troops ourselves, we needed a partner. Enter: France. Exit: any chance of a real settlement.
Civilization simply lacks backbone without the United States in the lead. Everyone agrees that a nuclear North Korea is a danger, but Russia and China play the role of enablers. Everyone thinks the same about Iran, but Europe is willing only to dither. Everyone thinks Iraq descending into chaos would be a disaster, but only the U.S. is pouring major resources into preventing it (granted, it’s our baby). Everyone supports the Afghan war, and NATO is actually pitching in there, but the Taliban is emboldened on the assumption that our European allies won’t have the same commitment to doing the job that we do.
This is not to say that the U.S. is flawless. Our mistakes, however, tend to be the products of an excess of zeal and idealism. We don’t do coldblooded calculation well. Some of this is the product of being a superpower — dishonest diplomatic ploys are beneath us. Some of it is the nature of our democracy, which values openness and honesty.
Paranoid critics charge that we are in Iraq to control its oil. The French could have pulled off such a self-serving maneuver clothed in idealism, but we are in Iraq for exactly the achingly innocent reasons we say. We are spending and bleeding there trying to plant a liberal democracy in the hardscrabble soil of Mesopotamia.
When President Bush is gone, conservative foreign policy will change. But it won’t be a change the foreign-policy establishment likes. It won’t be toward a let’s-talk-even-more-to-the-French multilateralism as represented by Nebraska’s tiresome Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel. It will be something more selfish and hardheaded, something more French in its motivation — Bush without the soft touches. Then, the world will miss the earnest do-gooding United States of old.
— Rich Lowry is author of Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years.
© 2006 by King Features Syndicate
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Comments? Is the rest of the world as calculating as Lowry says? Do we lack that cut-throat calculation in the world of international politics? Is that idealism our great weakness?
Elliot paraclete answered on 08/23/06:You accuse these nations of dithering however you easily forget that the American continent hasn't suffered an all out war in 150 years. There are people in Europe and Asia for whom the memory of such war is but a generation away, or they may even have participated. You accuse them from the comfort of distance, it's easier to send your forces to fight on someoneelse's turf, but much harder to commit a new generation to war when so many were lost in earlier generations. American has been hoping others will do the work, but when it comes down to it, if they want it done, they will have to do it themselves. The rest of the world has matured enough to know war isn't the answer. So let's not talk about war and responsibility in the same breath but maturity and responsibility | | Question/Answer | | Coup_de_Grace asked on 08/23/06 - French Annoy Violent Fascists....even today "Another thing that got on my nerves was the loathsome cult for France which the big press, even then, carried on. A man couldn't help feeling ashamed to be a German when he saw these saccharine hymns of praise to the 'great cultural nation.' This wretched licking of France's boots more than once made me throw down one of these 'world newspapers.' And on such occasions I sometimes picked up the Volksblatt, which, to be sure, seemed to me much smaller, but in these matters somewhat more appetizing. I was not in agreement with the sharp anti-Semitic tone, but from time to time I read arguments which gave me some food for thought.
At all events, these occasions slowly made me acquainted with the man and the movement, which in those days guided Vienna's destinies: Dr. Karl Lueger I and the Christian Social Party.
When I arrived in Vienna, I was hostile to both of them.
The man and the movement seemed 'reactionary' in my eyes.
My common sense of justice, however, forced me to change this judgment in proportion as I had occasion to become acquainted with the man and his work; and slowly my fair judgment turned to unconcealed admiration. Today, more than ever, I regard this man as the greatest German mayor of all times.
How many of my basic principles were upset by this change in my attitude toward the Christian Social movement!
My views with regard to anti-Semitism thus succumbed to the passage of time, and this was my greatest transformation of all.
(Volume I, Chapter 2)MEIN KAMPF by Adolph Hitler
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ paraclete answered on 08/23/06:what is the point of bringing up unpleasant material from the last century of Hate. do you attempt to prove there are fascists in France today, in Germany today. Look closer to home. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 08/21/06 - Maybe she wouldn't be so bad after all NO I'm NOT TALKING ABOUT HILLARY !!
I'm talking about Segolene Royal the Socialist candidate for the French Presidency . In a speech yesterday she took a swipe at at the Middle East policy of President Jacques Chirac, saying that France, "to win the respect of the world", should be prepared to act, not just talk.
"I make an appeal, here in Frangy, for the rallying together of all those who want change and want France to stand tall again," she said.
Vive le difference! (I hope )
paraclete answered on 08/22/06:would a socialist change France's isolationist view point or just reinforce it? | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 08/21/06 - Now there's something you don't see every day? Maori king crowned
August 21, 2006 - 10:21AM
A new Maori King of New Zealand has been named on the day when the late Maori queen is to be buried atop a sacred mountain surrounded by her five royal forebears.
Tuheitia Paki, eldest son of the late Queen, Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu, was named the new Maori King at Turangawaewae Marae (meeting place) in Ngaruawahia village, six days after his mother died at the age of 75.
Paki, 51, sat on the ornate carved wooden throne of the Kingitanga (Maori King) wearing his late mother's feather cloak shortly before her funeral service began.
Thousands of people crammed the meeting place for the ceremony and service, after five days of mourning during which tens of thousands paid their respects to the late Queen Te Ata.
Paki, whose royal name was not immediately announced, was chosen as the new Maori monarch by tribal leaders throughout New Zealand at secret meetings over the past few days.
At the formal Ascension or "Raising Up" ceremony, he tapped on his head with a bible in a royal tradition. The same bible was used to crown the six previous Maori monarchs.
Moments before his crowning, the crowd was asked whether the selected man should be king: "Ai" (yes) they replied.
The line of sovereigns stretches back to 1858 when the indigenous Maori selected their first king to unite their tribes as they struggled to retain ownership of their land amid an influx of British immigrants.
Tuheitia Paki and his wife Te Atawhai, have three children, Whatumoana, Korotangi and Naumai.
More than 5,000 mourners gathered this morning to pay their last respects to Dame Te Atairangikaahu.
AP
paraclete answered on 08/21/06:Well it did happen in New Zealand, which is beyond the ends of the Earth | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 08/21/06 - Is this the stuff that wars are made of? This has big implications, if some countries grow then some might shrink.
Bid to extend maritime boundaries
From correspondents in New York
August 21, 2006 01:24pm
Article from: Agence France-Presse
BRITAIN, France, Ireland and Spain are to launch a bid to extend their territorial waters at a UN conference on ocean rights that opens today, thus grabbing precious natural resources.
In a joint submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, the four states have applied to extend their territorial waters in the Bay of Biscay and the Celtic Sea beyond the current legal limit of 200 nautical miles.
The commission meets at United Nations headquarters in New York from Monday to September 15.
The four countries are submitting scientific proof that their continental shelf, the submerged prolongation of land territory, stretches beyond 200 nautical miles and that their territorial waters should therefore be extended.
And the stakes are high.
Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which came into force in 1994, each country benefits from an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) within the 200-mile boundary from their shoreline.
This means each state has exclusive rights over all natural resources within their territorial waters, including fish, oil, gas, minerals and other precious reserves found in the sea and the ocean's subsoil.
A clause in the convention stipulates that the exclusive economic zone can be extended to up to 350 nautical miles if countries can scientifically prove that their continental shelf extends beyond the 200-mile boundary.
France has the biggest exclusive economic zone in the world after the United States, which has not signed the Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The submission by Britain, France, Ireland and Spain concerns a "small" zone of 80,000sq km, according to Walter Roest of the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (Ifremer) who will be among those presenting scientific research to back up the request.
The commission is charged with examining the validity of the four countries' request, based on scientific criteria.
This includes proving that the area is "a natural prolongation of the continental shelf, based on its shape, composition of the bedrock and shallow depth that extends far out to sea, for example off the coast of Brittany," in western France, Mr Roest told AFP in Paris.
"We have filed a joint submission to establish the limits of our shared shelf and then we will agree among ourselves how to divide up the maritime area," he said.
Mr Roest said he expected the UN body to rule on the scientific evidence within a year.
The scientist added that France would also file other requests concerning zones surrounding its overseas territories of the Kerguelen Islands in the Indian Ocean, New Caledonia in the Pacific and French Guiana in Latin America.
France, whose exclusive economic zone currently covers 10.2 million square kilometres, hopes to gain an extra one million square kilometres, Roest said, adding that Paris had to move fast as all submissions must be presented by 2009.
"Today, the commission is not yet overloaded but about 60 requests could be submitted by coastal states by 2009," he said.
New Zealand, Brazil and Australia are currently preparing submissions of their own.
Many countries will be scrambling to capture as much area as possible as the economic rewards could be huge.
Countries will have exclusive rights to exploit "hydrocarbons, minerals, living species on the ocean floor and bacteria for use in biotechnology," Roest explained.
Fishing rights though will remain limited to within 200 nautical miles from the coast, he added.
paraclete answered on 08/21/06:Sounds like the Timor treaty will be up for negotiation again, but how will we keep those pesky indonesian fishermen out | | Question/Answer | | Coup_de_Grace asked on 08/21/06 - Mexican Plan to Annex American Southwest PAT BUCHANAN: "The nature and character of the invasion is far different than anything that used to happen. 58% of the Mexican people in one survey indicated they believed that the American Southwest belonged actually to Mexico. It was stolen from them. It belongs to them and I think that the Mexican government has a direct program basically to push it’s poor, unemployed, and uneducated into the United States for a variety of purposes. And one of them, in my judgment — in which I believe I documented it in the book — is an attempt at the reconquista they call it, the reannexation of the seven days states of the American Southwest, link linguistically, ethnically and culturally to become as much a part of Mexico is they are a part of America. And I think that is well underway.
Filed under: Immigration
Pat Buchanan on a radio talk show.
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Waddaya think? paraclete answered on 08/21/06:and this would be a bad thing, how?
The United States has made many territorial incursions upon it's neighbours during it's long expansionist history. Some were successful some less so, but as to giving up terrirory, that doesn't appear part of the agenda | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 08/18/06 - A STATEMENT:
I live in America because I like my FREEDOM.
Why do you live in America ... if you do?
HANK
paraclete answered on 08/18/06:I don't live in america Hank for exactly the same reason. If you had tasted the blessings of my land, you would not settle for second best. | | Question/Answer | | Coup_de_Grace asked on 08/18/06 - Iraq Forced to Import Oil AP "Iraqi officials announced plans to double the amount of money spent to import fuel to combat the country's worst oil and gasoline shortages in years. Much of the fuel crisis is due to insurgent attacks on convoys and on Iraq's fragile pipeline network, Oil Ministry officials said."
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I remember that Bush sold his plan for occupation by saying that rebuilding of Iraq and the new democratic government would be paid for by money from the export of Iraqi oil.
No one can deny that the War on Iraq has been a total disaster judging by RESULTS.
Shiite Iran is totally empowered after a Hezbollah victory against Israel.
Comments? paraclete answered on 08/18/06:one more Bush lie exposed.
The facts are that The Americans in Iraq have ahard time protecting themselves let alone maintaining security for Iraq's infrastructure
There is a solution stop all aid to Iraq so the Iraqi have to get serious about putting the country back in business | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 08/18/06 - UK Panel Asks: Why Do They Hate Airplanes? by Scott Ott
(2006-08-10) — The British Parliament, in a rapid response to a terror plot foiled by Scotland Yard yesterday, announced formation of a study panel today to determine why some Muslims hate airplanes.
Early reports indicate 21 men have been taken into custody in connection with a plan to take down an unknown number of U.S.-bound passenger jets originating in Great Britain.
The expert panel will examine various theories about why airplanes engender such hatred among devoted followers of a peaceful religion.
“Is it the horrendous noise? The speed? The condensation trails?” said one unnamed source close to the panel, listing some of the areas of inquiry the experts plan to pursue. “Because if it’s any of those things, we can get to work on engineering changes to make airplanes more tolerable to our Muslim brothers.” paraclete answered on 08/18/06:If they answer that question they might move on to a real question, such as why do Muslims hate; Jews? Christians? Hindus? Athiests? Sunni's? Shiites? the person across the road? anyone who looks at them? | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 08/15/06 - For those who need to be reminded. A few days ago, one of this board's regular contributors asked "Why Iraq?"
Well, I decided to go back and look at the justifications for the war in Iraq and see if they still hold up to close scrutiny.
So... here are the justifications used by the Bush administration. I think that every single one of them still holds up to close scrutiny. And Bush's message has not changed one iota since the beginning.
There were 7 main reasons given by the Bush Administration and Bush himself starting in a White House document called "A Decade of Deception". They are:
- Saddam Hussein's Defiance of United Nations Resolutions
- Saddam Hussein's Development of Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Saddam Hussein's Repression of the Iraqi People
- Saddam Hussein's Support for International Terrorism
- Saddam Hussein's Refusal to Account for Gulf War Prisoners
- Saddam Hussein's Refusal to Return Stolen Property
- Saddam Hussein's Efforts to Circumvent Economic Sanctions
Those are the exact same reasons that Bush has used ever since that day. He has not changed his reasons for the war in Iraq at any time.
Here are some quotes from President Bush during various speeches and appearances since then.
Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.
Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom.
Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens -- leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections -- then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.
States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.
We will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology, and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction. We will develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect America and our allies from sudden attack. And all nations should know: America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation's security.
--- The President's State of the Union Address, The United States Capitol, Washington, D.C., January 29, 2002.
I am highly doubtful that he'll [Saddam Hussein] meet our demands. I hope he does, but I'm highly doubtful. The reason I'm doubtful is he's had 11 years to meet the demands. For 11 long years he has basically told the United Nations and the world he doesn't care.
---Remarks by the President in Meeting with Central African Leaders, September 13, 2002.
The Italian Prime Minister joins other concerned world leaders who have called on the world to act. Among them, Prime Minister Blair of Great Britain, Prime Minister Aznar of Spain, President Kwasniewski of Poland. These leaders have reached the same conclusion I have -- that Saddam Hussein has made the case against himself.
He has broken every pledge he made to the United Nations and the world since his invasion of Kuwait was rolled back in 1991. Sixteen times the United Nations Security Council has passed resolutions designed to ensure that Iraq does not pose a threat to international peace and security. Saddam Hussein has violated every one of these 16 resolutions -- not once, but many times.
Saddam Hussein's regime continues to support terrorist groups and to oppress its civilian population. It refuses to account for missing Gulf War personnel, or to end illicit trade outside the U.N.'s oil-for-food program. And although the regime agreed in 1991 to destroy and stop developing all weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles, it has broken every aspect of this fundamental pledge.
--- Radio Address by the President to the Nation, September 14, 2002
Eleven years ago, as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi regime was required to destroy its weapons of mass destruction, to cease all development of such weapons, and to stop all support for terrorist groups. The Iraqi regime has violated all of those obligations. It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. It has given shelter and support to terrorism, and practices terror against its own people. The entire world has witnessed Iraq's eleven-year history of defiance, deception and bad faith.
---Remarks by the President on Iraq, Cincinnati Museum Center - Cincinnati Union Terminal, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 7, 2002
The dictator of Iraq is a student of Stalin, using murder as a tool of terror and control, within his own cabinet, within his own army, and even within his own family.
On Saddam Hussein's orders, opponents have been decapitated, wives and mothers of political opponents have been systematically raped as a method of intimidation, and political prisoners have been forced to watch their own children being tortured.
America believes that all people are entitled to hope and human rights, to the non-negotiable demands of human dignity. People everywhere prefer freedom to slavery; prosperity to squalor; self-government to the rule of terror and torture. America is a friend to the people of Iraq. Our demands are directed only at the regime that enslaves them and threatens us. When these demands are met, the first and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women and children. The oppression of Kurds, Assyrians, Turkomans, Shi'a, Sunnis and others will be lifted. The long captivity of Iraq will end, and an era of new hope will begin.
---Remarks by the President on Iraq, Cincinnati Museum Center - Cincinnati Union Terminal, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 7, 2002
Q Sir, why should we be more worried about Saddam Hussein, who has no nuclear weapons, than Kim Chong-il, who is unstable and does have nuclear weapons?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, I think it's important to remember that Saddam Hussein was close to having a nuclear weapon. We don't know whether or not he has a nuclear weapon. We do expect him to disarm his weapons of mass destruction, that's what we expect.
Secondly, the international community has been trying to resolve the situation in Iraq through diplomacy for 11 years. And for 11 years, Saddam Hussein has defied the international community. And now we've brought the world together to send a clear signal: we expect him to disarm, to get rid of his weapons of mass destruction. The first step in determining whether or not he will do that was discouraging. His declaration was short. And the international community recognized that, that he wasn't forthcoming.
Again, I hope this Iraq situation will be resolved peacefully. One of my New Year's resolutions is to work to deal with these situations in a way so that they're resolved peacefully. But thus far, it appears that, first look, that Saddam Hussein hasn't heard the message.
---President Discusses Iraq and North Korea with Reporters, The Coffee Station, Crawford, Texas December 31, 2002
Our nation and the world must learn the lessons of the Korean Peninsula and not allow an even greater threat to rise up in Iraq. A brutal dictator, with a history of reckless aggression, with ties to terrorism, with great potential wealth, will not be permitted to dominate a vital region and threaten the United States. (Applause.)
Twelve years ago, Saddam Hussein faced the prospect of being the last casualty in a war he had started and lost. To spare himself, he agreed to disarm of all weapons of mass destruction. For the next 12 years, he systematically violated that agreement.
--- Excerpts from the State of the Union regarding Iraq, January 28, 2003
The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary; he is deceiving. From intelligence sources we know, for instance, that thousands of Iraqi security personnel are at work hiding documents and materials from the U.N. inspectors, sanitizing inspection sites and monitoring the inspectors themselves. Iraqi officials accompany the inspectors in order to intimidate witnesses.
Iraq is blocking U-2 surveillance flights requested by the United Nations. Iraqi intelligence officers are posing as the scientists inspectors are supposed to interview. Real scientists have been coached by Iraqi officials on what to say. Intelligence sources indicate that Saddam Hussein has ordered that scientists who cooperate with U.N. inspectors in disarming Iraq will be killed, along with their families.
Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction. But why? The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate, or attack.
With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East and create deadly havoc in that region. And this Congress and the America people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.
--- Excerpts from the State of the Union regarding Iraq, January 28, 2003
Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained -- by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape. If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning.
--- Excerpts from the State of the Union regarding Iraq, January 28, 2003
We know that the Iraqis still are not volunteering information. Then when they do, what they are giving is often partial and misleading. We know that when confronted with facts, the Iraqis still are changing their story to explain those facts, but not enough to give us the truth.
---Secretary Powell's Remarks at U.N. Security Council Meeting, March 7, 2003
Iraq's talented people, rich culture, and tremendous potential have been hijacked by Saddam Hussein. His brutal regime has reduced a country with a long and proud history to an international pariah that oppresses its citizens, started two wars of aggression against its neighbors, and still poses a grave threat to the security of its region and the world.
Saddam's defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding the disarmament of his nuclear, chemical, biological, and long-range missile capacity has led to sanctions on Iraq and has undermined the authority of the U.N. For 12 years, the international community has tried to persuade him to disarm and thereby avoid military conflict, most recently through the unanimous adoption of UNSCR 1441. The responsibility is his. If Saddam refuses even now to cooperate fully with the United Nations, he brings on himself the serious consequences foreseen in UNSCR 1441 and previous resolutions.
---Statement of the Atlantic Summit: A Vision for Iraq and the Iraqi People, March 16, 2003
The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations. He is a danger to his neighbors. He's a sponsor of terrorism. He's an obstacle to progress in the Middle East. For decades he has been the cruel, cruel oppressor of the Iraq people.
On this very day 15 years ago, Saddam Hussein launched a chemical weapons attack on the Iraqi village of Halabja. With a single order the Iraqi regime killed thousands of men and women and children, without mercy or without shame. Saddam Hussein has proven he is capable of any crime. We must not permit his crimes to reach across the world.
Saddam Hussein has a history of mass murder. He possesses the weapons of mass murder. He agrees -- he agreed to disarm Iraq of these weapons as a condition for ending the Gulf War over a decade ago. The United Nations Security Council, in Resolution 1441, has declared Iraq in material breach of its longstanding obligations, demanding once again Iraq's full and immediate disarmament, and promised serious consequences if the regime refused to comply. That resolution was passed unanimously and its logic is inescapable; the Iraqi regime will disarm itself, or the Iraqi regime will be disarmed by force. And the regime has not disarmed itself.
---Press Availability with President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, President Aznar, and Prime Minister Barroso, The Azores, Portugal, March 16, 2003
Good afternoon. Yesterday, December the 13th, at around 8:30 p.m. Baghdad time, United States military forces captured Saddam Hussein alive. He was found near a farmhouse outside the city of Tikrit, in a swift raid conducted without casualties. And now the former dictator of Iraq will face the justice he denied to millions.
The capture of this man was crucial to the rise of a free Iraq. It marks the end of the road for him, and for all who bullied and killed in his name. For the Baathist holdouts largely responsible for the current violence, there will be no return to the corrupt power and privilege they once held. For the vast majority of Iraqi citizens who wish to live as free men and women, this event brings further assurance that the torture chambers and the secret police are gone forever.
And this afternoon, I have a message for the Iraqi people: You will not have to fear the rule of Saddam Hussein ever again. All Iraqis who take the side of freedom have taken the winning side. The goals of our coalition are the same as your goals -- sovereignty for your country, dignity for your great culture, and for every Iraqi citizen, the opportunity for a better life.
--- Remarks by the President on the Capture of Saddam Hussein, The Cabinet Room, December 14, 2003
The United States and our allies have ended terror regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. All regimes are on notice that supporting terror is not a viable strategy for the long term.
September 11 made clear our enemies' goals and provided painful experience of how far they are willing to go to achieve them.
We must face our worst nightmare: The possibility of sudden, secret attack by chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons and the coming together of the terrorist threat with weapons of mass destruction.
Lasting peace and long-term security are only possible through the advance of prosperity, liberty, and human dignity.
The stakes could not be higher. If the Middle East is to leave behind stagnation, tyranny, and violence for export, then freedom must flourish in every corner of the region.
---From remarks by NSA Rice, Louisville, KY, 3/8/04
The fall of Saddam Hussein removed a source of instability and intimidation from the heart of the Middle East. All of Iraq's neighbors, including Jordan, are safer now. And the emergence of a peaceful, prosperous, and free Iraq will contribute to Jordan's security and prosperity.
---Remarks by President Bush and His Majesty King Abdullah II of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in a Press Availability, The Rose Garden, May 6, 2004
To win this war, we are confronting regimes with ties to terror that arm to threaten the peace. We will remove threats before they arrive, instead of waiting for the next attack, the next catastrophe. That is one of the lessons of September the 11th we must never forget. Saddam Hussein's regime posed a threat to the American people, and people around the world. Iraq was a country in which millions of people lived in fear, and many thousands disappeared into mass graves. This was a regime that tortured children in front of their parents. This was a regime that invaded its neighbors. This is a regime that had used chemical weapons before. It had used weapons not only against countries in its neighborhood, but against its own citizens. This is a regime which gave cash rewards to families of suicide bombers. This is a regime that sheltered terrorist groups. This is a regime that hated America.
And so we saw a threat, and it was a real threat. And that's why I went to the United Nations. The administration looked at the intelligence, saw a threat, and remembered the facts and saw a threat. The Congress, members of both political parties, looked at the intelligence. They saw a threat. The members of the United Nations Security Council looked at the intelligence and saw a threat, and voted unanimously to send the message to Mr. Saddam Hussein, disarm or face serious consequences. As usual, he ignored the demands of the free world. So I had a choice to make -- either to trust the word of a madman, or defend America. Given that choice, I will defend America every time.
---Remarks by the President to the Military Personnel, Fort Lewis, Washington, June 18, 2004.
The Iraqi people are emerging from decades of tyranny and oppression. Under the regime of Saddam Hussein, the Shia and Kurds were brutally oppressed, and the vast majority of Sunni Arabs were also denied their basic rights, while senior regime officials enjoyed the privileges of unchecked power. The challenge facing Iraqis today is to put this past behind them, and come together to build a new Iraq that includes all of its people.
---President Addresses Nation, Discusses Iraq, War on Terror, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, June 28, 2005
President Talabani has dedicated his life to the cause of liberty in Iraq. As a lawyer, a journalist, and a political leader in Northern Iraq, he stood up to a brutal dictator, because he believes that every Iraqi deserves the be free. The dictator destroyed Kurdish villages, ordered poison gas attacks on a Kurdish city, and violently repressed other religious and ethnic groups. For President Talibani and his fellow citizens, the day Saddam was removed from power was a day of deliverance. And America will always be proud that we led the armies of liberation.
---President Welcomes President Talabani of Iraq to the White House, The East Room, September 13, 2005
Listen, thank you all for coming. It's been my honor to visit with folks who know firsthand the brutality of Saddam Hussein. These are folks who have suffered, one way or the other, because the tyrant was a law unto himself, and was willing to deny people basic human rights. The stories here are compelling stories. They're stories of sadness and stories of bravery.
In the course of our discussion, we were also able to talk about what a contrast it is between a society which was willing to jail people, torture people and beat people and kill people, to a society that is beginning to understand the fruits of democracy and freedom.
--- President Meets with Victims of Saddam Hussein, Discusses Progress, The Roosevelt Room, January 18, 2006.
The point that I am making is that for all the talk about Bush having changed his reasons for the war in Iraq, or not making it clear why we went into Iraq, I have been able to show you just a few examples where he was extremely clear what we went to Iraq for and why. The message never changed, and the reasons never changed.
The reasons we are in Iraq are because Saddam Hussein was a threat to the USA, who was developing WMDs, who had not complied with the UN for 12 years, who had lied to inspectors about the whereabouts and status of hsi WMDs and long-range weapons, and who oppressed his people brutally. And we are there because Saddam Hussein was a terrorist supporter. And finally, we are there because by fighting the terrorists there, we aren't fighting them here.
Bush didn't lie, he didn't change his messsage, and he didn't waiver. The reasons that we are in Iraq are spelled out clearly, and have been for nearly 4 years.
So for all those who ask "Why Iraq", now you know.
Elliot paraclete answered on 08/15/06:so now you can put Iran's name on the first four and off you go to war, If it's good enough for Afganistan and Iraq why are you waiting? | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 08/14/06 - "I See Dead People" Chris Matthews's comment after viewing Joe Lieberman's new political commercial. (It was a real unfortunate piece of work; no way to go out)
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Has anyone else seen this commercial? paraclete answered on 08/15/06:do you see George Bush? | | Question/Answer | | arcura asked on 08/15/06 - It chuckle time................................. A man walked into a very high-tech bar. As he sat down on a stool he noticed that the bartender was a robot. The robot clicked to attention and asked, "Sir, what will you have?" The man thought a moment then replied? "A martini please."
The robot clicked a couple of times and mixed the best martini the man had ever had. The robot then asked, "sir, what is your
IQ?" The man answered "oh, about 164."
The robot then proceeded to discuss the 'theory of relativity', inter-stellar space travel', 'the latest medical break-throughs, etc.......
The man was most impressed. He left the bar but thought he would try a different tact. He returned and took a seat. Again the robot clicked and asked what he would have? "A Martini please." Again it was superb? The robot again asked “what is your IQ sir?" This time the man answered, "Oh about 100".
So the robot started discus sing NASCAR racing, the latest basketball scores, and what to expect the Dodgers to do this weekend.
The guy had to try it one more time. So he left, returned and took a stool.... Again a martini, and the question, "What is your IQ?"??
This time the man drawled out " Uh.....bout 50".
The robot clicked then leaned close and very slowly asked, "A-r-e? y-o-u-r? p-e-o-p-l-e??? g-o-i-n-g? t-o?? n-o-m-i-n-a-t-e?
H-i-l-l-a-r-y-??????
paraclete answered on 08/15/06:Ha Ha Ha
okay having responded as expected I have to say
if the robot thought you had an IQ of 100 he would have said
Mission Accomplished!
Okay, I know you don't understand but most people lie in an intelligence test and so the intelligence of americans is over estimated.
Duh! | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 08/14/06 - Shebaa Farms Israel suffered a terrible defeat this weekend . The Security Council Resolution 1701 states the following :
PP7. Taking due note of the proposals made in the seven-point plan regarding the Shebaa farms area
The Seven Point Plan this is refering to is one that Lebanon floated last week ; The significant part reading :
3. A commitment from the [UN] Security Council to place the Shebaa Farms area and the Kfarshouba Hills under UN jurisdiction until border delineation and Lebanese sovereignty over them are fully settled. While in UN custody, the area will be accessible to Lebanese property owners there. Further, Israel surrenders all remaining landmine maps in South Lebanon to the UN.
The Shebaa Farms has been under Israeli control since the end of the 6 Day War .The area had been in possession of Syria and although it was never clear if Syria or Lebanon had proper claim to the territory prior to the 6 Day War it was in possession of Syria .
The Lebanese first made a claim to the land after the 2000 Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon .They disputed Israel's compliance with UN Resolution 425 (the complete withdrawal from Lebanon).Lebanon claimed that the Shebaa Farms area was actually Lebanese, and that the Israelis should therefore withdraw from there as well.The United Nations agreed with Israel that the area is not covered by United Nations UN Security Council Resolution 425.
All maps of the area have in the past placed the farms in Syrian territory .However since it served the jihadists interests, even Syria supported Lebanese claims to them ..not that that matters much since in truth Syria considers Lebanon Syrian territory .
This became one of the chief phony rationals for Hezbollah cross border attacks of Israel .
Anyway the reality is that Israel siezed the area as well as the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967. They have strategic importance in that they overlook many Israeli towns as well as the Bekka Valley .
This resolution if I read it correctly compels Israel to turn the area over first to UNIFIL and the Syrian Army .It by extension legitimizes Lebanese claims to the territory .It is a cease fire that only one side is compelled to surrender property . That sure sounds like a defeat to me.
Contrasting that there have been no significant concessions asked of Hezbollah . It is not disarmed ;there are no restrictions on resupplying them ; The soldiers they kidnapped and are holding hostage are not addressed .
The resolution fails to mention Iran's role in the conflict . They appear to be the big winners in this war .
paraclete answered on 08/15/06:It ain't over until it's over, this was round one, at this point a tie, Israel lost something but so did Hezbollah, now the question is whether the UN will do something about Hezbollah. Think about Lebanon, they didn't win anything unless you think massive destruction and a shattered economy is a prize | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 08/14/06 - What Do You Think of This Assessment? "In the wake of the thwarted plot to explode bombs on flight from Britain to the U.S., several commentators echoed Pres. Bush's slogan that fighting terrorism is going to be a long war, the defining struggle of this generation. No one mentioned striving for a long peace with the Arab world, which will also take a generation.
The roots of terrorism are not insane. Real conditions gave rise to a huge disaffected segment of Muslims, mostly young and male. From northern Africa across the entire Middle East to Pakistan, there has been a population boom without much hope that any child will receive adequate education, except in the Koran, or adequate work. The governments are either militaristic or dominated by reactionary royal families.
In other words, terrorism grew out of poverty, ignorance, and a sense of hopelessness about the future. Hating America and Israel is also complex, but these other factors made a huge contribution. Therefore, since Islam isn't going to change, and since this new wave of the dispossessed isn't going away, the West has two choices. We can keep supporting the conditions that inflame radical Islam, or we can move positively to bring the Muslim world into a global alliance.
Terrorism is global because national boundaries don't hold back anger and hopelessness anymore. Unlike Communism, terrorism can't be contained. To win a long peace will be difficult because of the deep roots of the problem. But we make it more difficult by being militaristic, by supporting reactionary regimes, by making oil the centerpiece of our foreign policy in the Middle East, by engendering bogeyman hatred of Arabs, and by refusing to see that peace is achievable without annihilating the enemy. The administration's attitude that only total victory is acceptable amounts to saying that every radicalized Muslim male must be killed or neutralized. The war between Israel and Hezbollah is quickly dismantling that fantasy.
The time is dark right now, and a new scare like the airline bombing plot galvanizes fear and anger. But retaliation isn't going to work in the long run. Our only alternative is the long peace, and we have to hope that this idea begins to take root soon, or else we will be trapped in an endless cycle of attack and response just as we are today." Deepak Chopra
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My opinion==Islam is the problem. Islam must voluntarily change first.
What is your opinion? paraclete answered on 08/15/06:There can be no peace with the Arab world, the Arabs have sought to dominate the world since their religious fevour was awoken 1400 years ago. Today they dominate with oil, they don't need military or terrorist means to bring down the world to their level they just need to strangle the oil supply, or exploit it for the wealth to do other things later. There, unfortunately, is only one answer, confrontation and annihilation, while ever they hold to Islam. Islam will not change, or moderate, because fundamentaly Islam is designed to dominate others | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 08/13/06 - CONVICTION:
I have learned that peace at the individual, family, community and world levels are inter-related, and a natural progression. I have learned about the power of one person, with a conviction, to make a difference in our communities and world.
Do these words apply to President Bush?
HANK
paraclete answered on 08/13/06:why do you ask the same question on more than one Board? | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 08/13/06 - Bush Caught Lying From the President's Radio Address, August 12, 2006:
This plot is further evidence that the terrorists we face are sophisticated, and constantly changing their tactics... We're dealing with a new enemy that uses **new means of attack** and new methods to communicate.
From the New York Times, Aug. 12, 2006:
In 1995, a plot to bomb 12 American jumbo jets over the Pacific with a liquid explosive was discovered when the bomb makers accidentally set fire to their laboratory in Manila.
From the New York Times editorial, Aug. 12, 2006 :
The most frightening thing about the foiled plot to use liquid explosives to blow up airplanes over the Atlantic is that both the government and the aviation industry have been aware of the liquid bomb threat for years but have done little to prepare for it.
From the Associated Press:
As the British terror plot was unfolding, the Bush administration quietly tried to take away $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new explosives detection technology....Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn., who joined Republicans to block the administration's recent diversion of explosives detection money, said research and development is crucial to thwarting future attacks, and there is bipartisan agreement that Homeland Security has fallen short. ''They clearly have been given lots of resources that they haven't been using,'' Sabo said."
Lie in *****
Comments? paraclete answered on 08/13/06:These things are new to George, he's only been in the job five years and hasn't experienced everything yet. Haven't you observed that he has difficulty putting two words together let alone putting two isolated, though similar, incidents together. In an administration like Bush's it doesn't pay to be smarter than the leader. | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 08/13/06 - Iraq War is the Number One Issue "The war in Iraq is the No. 1 issue in the country today. Americans are no longer willing to accept the human suffering or the financial toll of a war that has lasted for 3 ½ years with no end in sight.
The numbers speak for themselves. We've lost almost 2,600 Americans.
More than 19,000 have been wounded, 46 percent of them so badly they couldn't return to their units. Tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed in sectarian violence. The U.S. is spending $11 million every hour - $8 billion every month. Yet the administration refuses to budge from its open-ended, stay-the-course policy. I know it and the American people know it: We need to redeploy our troops to the periphery and refocus on the real war against terrorism. It's long past the time for us to change direction." Murtha
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Can't argue with this, can we Sen Loserman? paraclete answered on 08/13/06:It sounds like the voice of sanity. Let the Iraqi govern thier own country and that includes mixing it with the terrorists | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 08/11/06 - Multi-National Force to protect whom??? Hello:
If Israel accepts UN sponsored “peace” keepers on its northern border, it’s my bet that the intent of the force will be to prevent Israel from defending themselves rather than preventing Hezbollah from re-arming.
WHEN push comes to shove, this “peace” keeping force, will, in my view, aim its guns south. The placement of such a force, will be the first loss for the IDF.
Therefore, I suggest that Israel has painted itself into a corner. A corner not too different than the corner we find ourselves in, in Iraq. IF Israel would have invaded Southern Lebanon with everything they had, they would have won in 10 days. They didn’t, and they’ll lose.
Just like we didn’t in Iraq, and are losing. The problem is that Iran is going to be the victor, and that spells very big trouble for the entire world.
How did things go so wrong?
excon
paraclete answered on 08/12/06:to protect hezbollah of course, when has there been a multinational force to protect Israel.
Ex you know this Israeli aggression must be stopped (I'm being sarcastic) if Hezbollah is to live in peace and go about their business of kidnapping and taking over Lebanon with the ultimate aim of eliminating Israel.
As to an Iranian invasion, don't make the same mistake Bush did, you would wind up bogged down in a war of attrition just as the Russians did in Afganistan. If you invade you polarise the population's opinion against you, take Israel's recent experience, where are the Lebanese calling for an Israeli victory, whether they agree with Hezbollah or not, Israel is still the invader.
Assassination isn't the answer, that makes you as bad as the enemy. No, change you own nation by not being dependent on oil and ultimately you can depress the price and squeeze Iran into submission, they have only become vocal when they have benefited froma high oil price and they intend to keep it high. | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 08/10/06 - Waddya think?
Hello:
I'm gonna start a new airline. It's gonna be called Naked Airlines. Our motto is gonna be: No clothes - No bombs.
I'm sellin stock. Any takers?
excon
paraclete answered on 08/10/06:I have a better solution ex, let's just ban airlines, afterall think of the gas that will be saved by getting these polluting gas guzzlers out of the skies. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 08/10/06 - Once again, France is being...French If you'll remember it was just a few days ago that "The United States and France reached agreement Saturday on a draft resolution that calls for an end to the fighting in Lebanon and the eventual deployment of a U.N.-mandated peacekeeping force."
By now I'm sure you've heard that France reneged on this agreement. Now they're considering their own plan:
Speaking in Toulon on Tuesday, French president Jacques Chirac said he still hopes the US will back an initial US-France draft.
“If we don’t manage it, there will obviously be a debate in the security council,” Chirac told reporters.
“Everyone will present their position clearly, including, of course, France with its own resolution.”
Chirac’s comments reflect widespread frustration at the UN’s failure to overcome deadlock following France and America’s draft ceasefire resolution last weekend.
Following Lebanese and Arab league objections to the draft, Paris is calling for changes to appease Arab concerns.
Anyone have Chirac's address so I can send him a gift?
![]() paraclete answered on 08/10/06:isn't it wonderful two arrogant nations negotiating a peace without the benefit of the participants of the conflict. All I have to say is who asked them. | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 08/10/06 - DON'T BE SHOCKED:
As some of you know, I have been behind G.W.B. since the git-go and I still am. I'm very proud of this man who had the guts to take on the World in order to discover the WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY and HOW's when considering the workings of 'real evil' that few of us knew existed in Iraq and elsewhere. As we know now, it's the Muslims. They're all over the place. I sincerely believe that many people have overlooked this INTENT since day one.
Am I wrong in believing this about my President?
HANK
paraclete answered on 08/10/06:Yes GWB is too shallow, too simplistic in his thinking. The evil you suggest he uncovered in Iraq was in plain sight and had been for a long time and in fact had been supported by the United States and many presidents. If you want to find the real evil look not beyond your borders, look within, stop overlooking the corrupt political system you think is democracy.
At the same time you have personally discovered the evil that is Islam, an evil that has been in plain sight for 1400 years, a gross deception existing in impoverished nations and which enslaves millions. Islam has made no pretense of it's intention to rule the world and yet you, we, and many others are oblivious to its plans. How will you deal with it, not until you shrugg off your racist past and your over correct political correctness which cannot give offence to anyone and stop giving aid to Islamic regimes | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 08/09/06 - Iraqi civil war
Hello pundits:
Help me out here. Let’s see, al-Qaida is Sunni. Hezbollah is Shiite. They hate each other. For whatever reason, in Iraq Sunni’s have made it their mission to slaughter Shiites, and Shiite death squads are returning fire.
And, just exactly what is wrong with letting these two enemies’ of ours destroy each other?
excon
paraclete answered on 08/09/06:let them fight it out, sure and are you going to accept the millions of refugees that will run from the conflict | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 08/09/06 - Here we go again? I couldn't help bringing this one to your attention.
I wonder what security alert level this will bring? Will the army be brought in to round up all young men of middle eastern appearence? OH!, I'm sorry, you don't say that over there for fear of racial profiling, do you? what do you say arab-american? but these guys arn't american and how do you tell them from hispanics anyway.
Egyptian students disappear in U.S.
FBI hunting 11 exchange students who didn't show up at school
Tuesday, August 8, 2006; Posted: 10:07 p.m. EDT (02:07 GMT)
The students would have had to register their fingerprints on a machine like this one at JFK Airport.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Immigration agents and the FBI are looking for 11 Egyptian students who entered the United States on valid student visas, then failed to show up at a university in Montana, authorities said.
The FBI on Saturday issued a nationwide alert to law enforcement agencies. Included were the students' names, ages, passport numbers and photographs.
"At the present time there are no known associations to any terrorist groups. Approach with caution," the lookout bulletin states.
FBI and immigration officials confirmed there's no evidence pointing to criminal activity or a terrorist threat. However, The Associated Press quoted a law enforcement official as saying that the students could be sent home when found because they violated the terms of their visas.
They were part of an all-male group of 17 students that landed July 29 at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. Six of them arrived later at Montana State University as part of an exchange program; the other 11 did not, prompting school officials to contact the government.
A source with knowledge of the investigation said the men, who range in age from 17 to 22, may be staying in New York, visiting relatives and trying to find jobs.
"We have run their names through the wringer," one Department of Homeland Security official said.
U.S. authorities are working with foreign intelligence agencies to make sure there is nothing suspicious in the students' backgrounds, federal sources said. Those sources added that 20 students applied for student visas to go to Montana State, but three of the applicants were denied.
"We do want to talk to them. But at this point there's no reason to believe they pose any criminal or terrorist threat," said Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Julie Myers, who heads Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The students were identified as:
• El Sayed Ahmed Elsayed Ibrahim, 20
• Eslam Ibrahim Mohamed El Dessouki, 21
• Alaa Abd El Fattah Ali El Bahnasawi, 20
• Mohamed Ragab Mohamed Abd Alla, 22
• Ahmed Refaat Saad El Moghazi El Laket, 19
• Ahmed Mohamed Mohamed Abou El Ela, 21
• Mohamed Ibrahim Elsayed El Moghazy, 20
• Ebrahim Mabrouk Moustafa Abdou, 22
• Moustafa Wagdy Moustafa El Gafary, 18
• Mohamed Saleh Ahmed Maray, 20
• Mohamed Ibrahim Fouaad El Shenawy, 17
paraclete answered on 08/09/06: Yes an upgraded security system got those ones, it's amazing what you get for your money these days, their finger prints will be on file | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 08/08/06 - August 21.... be afraid The date is prominent in Islam
It is on that date that Muhammad was carried on a flying horse with a human head, from Mecca to Jerusalem, where he ascended into heaven to meet the other prophets after he visited the Temple Mount with the angel Gabriel .While he was visiting heaven the night sky was lit up over Jerusalem . It is from this tale that Islam lays claim to Jerusalem.
August 22 of this year corresponds with the Islamic date of Rajab 28, the day Saladin conquered Jerusalem from the Crusaders.
Rajab 28 is also the date the Imam Husayn (who started Shia Islam and who is revered as the precurser of the Hidden 12th Imam) started his journey to Karbala from Medina.
It is also the day before the Mahdi-hatter,Ahmadinejad , promises to have an appropriate reply to the UN's demand for accountability for Iran's nuclear program.
As the Shia legend goes ;Imam Mahdi will return at a time of great global chaos, oppression and bloodshed and usher in an era of Islamic justice.
Ahmadinejad sees himself as the instrument to pave the way for Imam Mahdi's return. Will he pave the way for the Mahdi's return by lighting up the Jerusalem sky ?
paraclete answered on 08/08/06:who should I be afraid of, some nonexistant Madhi or some muslim madman? The Muslims look back to Saladin and their past glories of conquest. They have no Saladin today to conquer Jerusalem, no Mudhutmad prophet to lead them, they are but a rabble, shouting in the streets | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 08/07/06 - Iraq is lost and gone forever.
Hello:
Did you see them? How many were there, 250,000 of them. Iraqi's, on the streets, carrying Hezbollah flags and yelling death to America.
If that's all you knew about Iraq, you’d say, they should be on the list of countries that we're going to invade in the war on terror.
You’d never say, that we did invade them, gave our soldiers lives to do so, that they appreciate it, and that we're winning. You just wouldn't.
excon
paraclete answered on 08/08/06:it's what you get when you turn up uninvited | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 08/07/06 - Lebanon is *Not a Victim* "Lebanon has now declared war on Israel and its citizens are bearing the consequences. Lebanon is no more a victim of Hezbollah than Austria was a victim of Nazism. In fact a higher percentage of Lebanese—more than 80%--say they support Hezbollah. The figures were nearly as high before the recent civilian deaths.
This is considerably higher than the number of Austrians who supported Hitler when the Nazis marched into Austria in 1938. Austria too claimed it was a victim, but no serious person today believes such self-serving historical revisionism. Austria was not “Hitler’s first victim.” It was Hitler’s most sympathetic collaborator.
So too with Lebanon, whose president has praised Hezbollah, whose army is helping Hezbollah, and many of whose “civilians” are collaborating with Hezbollah. According to a news report in the New York Times on Sunday, August 6th, Hezbollah is Lebanon and Lebanon is Hezbollah. It is “as much a part of society as is its Shiite faith.” As a car mechanic put it, “we are Hezbollah.” A café owner was even more direct: “Just because I’m sitting here in this café doesn’t mean I’m not a resistance fighter.” Of course if he were killed fighting Israel, his death would be listed as a “civilian” casualty. Nor is he alone. He continued: “Everyone has a weapon in his house…There are doctors, teachers, and farmers. Hezbollah is people. People are Hezbollah.” Except, of course, when they are killed or injured fighting against Israel—then they become just ‘people,’ just “civilians.” As a doctor asked rhetorically, as he pointed to dead bodies resulting from a battle between Israeli and Hezbollah forces, “Do you see anybody from Hezbollah?”
It is virtually impossible to distinguish the Hezbollah dead from the truly civilian dead, just as it is virtually impossible to distinguish the Hezbollah living from the civilian living, especially in the south. The “civilian” death figures reported by Lebanese authorities include large numbers of Hezbollah fighters, collaborators, facilitators and active supporters. They also include civilians who were warned to leave, but chose to remain, sometimes with their children, to serve as human shields. The deaths of these “civilians” are the responsibility of Hezbollah and the Lebanese government, which has done very little to protect its civilians.
Lebanon has chosen sides—not all Lebanese, but the democratically chosen Lebanese government. When a nation chooses sides in a war, especially when it chooses the side of terrorism, its civilians pay a price for that choice. This has been true of every war.
We must stop viewing Lebanon as a victim and begin to see it as a collaborator with terrorism. Nor is there any excuse for this choice. Lebanon was not “driven” to support Hezbollah by Israel or the U.S., as some Lebanese leaders falsely claim. Lebanon included Hezbollah in its government, knowing that it is a terrorist organization. It abdicated the responsibility for providing social, economic and police services in the south to Hezbollah.
The Nazi party too provided social, economic and educational services to the poor in Germany and Austria. Yet the people who chose to submit to such evil paid a heavy price. People make choices and they bear the consequences of choosing to collaborate with terrorism. Lebanon has chosen the wrong side and its citizens are paying the price. Maybe next time a democracy must choose between collaborating with terrorism or resisting terrorism, it will choose the right side."===Alan Dershowitz
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Comments? paraclete answered on 08/08/06:according to your theorum the women and the children are Hezbollah. It's like saying all Muslims are shiite, or all Christians are Catholic. What about my Christian Lebanese friends who are currently in Lebanon, are they Hezbollah too?
So 80% of the country favour the political idea that is Hezbollah. Do you know what that is?, I certainly don't. And who do you think polarised them into this position? A shattered country that Israel didn't help to recover created this position and Hezbollah bought their allegience, probally with Iranian money, but who asks who paid for the food when you are hungry, or who paid for the medicines when you are sick. no, you sit snuggly in you safe place and critize.
People don't deserve to die just because they have the wrong political persuasion, if that were so the whole of Germany should have been executed after WWII, or the whole of Japan. That is totalitarian thinking and it is wrong. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 08/07/06 - Who'll be first? So Mel Gibson got drunk and said some stupid anti-Semitic things and the media and left-wing bloggers had a field day with it. Last week the Huffington Post had column after column blistering Mel.
Madonna stages a mock crucifixion - in Rome - after the Vatican condemned warned her, "To crucify herself during the concert in the city of Popes and martyrs is an act of open hostility."
Who'll be the first to take Madonna to task for her pre-meditated hostility? Any of you Mel critics here or out there in the liberal media and blogosphere willing to take a shot at Madonna as well?
Steve paraclete answered on 08/08/06:you only get problems when you say or do something against non-Christians, you know who I mean Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc, etc, etc
It's the same with racism, racism only exists when you say something against non-whites, you know who I mean, the blacks, the hispanics, arabs, etc, etc, etc
Here's the latest piece of rubbish along these lines, no one takes a joke anymore, they all take themselves too seriously
sacked over 'terrorist' jibe
From Telford Vice in Durban, South Africa
August 08, 2006 05:03am
Article from: Reuters
Font size: + -
FORMER Test batsman Dean Jones has been sacked from his job as a TV commentator, after referring to South Africa's Muslim batsman, Hashim Amla, as a "terrorist".
Jones, who admitted making the comment and apologised, was on a commentary team covering the second Test between Sri Lanka and South Africa in Colombo.
According to a statement issued by Cricket South Africa, viewers heard Jones say, "the terrorist has got another wicket" when Amla took the catch that dismissed Kumar Sangakkara.
Amla is a devout Muslim who wears a beard for religious reasons and has successfully negotiated with the South Africa team's main sponsor, SA Breweries, not to wear the Castle Lager logo on his playing and practice gear.
"We take the strongest exception to this comment, and we will lodge an official complaint with the host broadcaster, Ten Sports, that employs him," CSA chief executive Gerald Majola was quoted as saying.
"We will be asking for his immediate suspension and a full apology."
The match is being broadcast live in South Africa, which has a significant Muslim community.
"The switchboards of both CSA and SuperSport, that takes a feed of the broadcast to South African audiences, have been jammed with calls from some very angry people," Majola was quoted as saying.
"I'm gone, I'm on the 1am flight," Jones told reporters in Colombo where he issued a statement apologising for his comment. | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 08/07/06 - " "America leads the world in advertising techniques, and now we'll need every ounce of Madison Avenue's skill to sell a difficult product. That product is victory. From the beginning we were told that victory was the only acceptable outcome in Iraq, and now selling that message has become twice as difficult in Lebanon.
Insurgents an terrorists aren't giving up. The Islamic world celebrates their existence. At this moment the most popular figure among Muslims everywhere is Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the defiant Hezbollah leader who stands as tall as Osama bin Laden and has proved just as indestructible.
The reality of victory isn't even the point anymore. President Bush, in his surprise visit to Baghdad six weeks ago, announced a new plan to secure people's safety in Baghdad. He showed his total support for the al-Maliki government, which pledged to end the terror of Shi'ite militias on the street. A program of amnesty and national unification made headlines.
None of it has happened. But instead of saying so, which would be realistic, the image has to shift. The sales job needs tweaking. It's sad when image can't match reality. But isn't that the point in all wars? The home front must be sold the inevitability of victory and the impossibility of defeat. War-makers are frighteningly willing to sacrifice civilian lives while fiercely defending their own posturing. Thus Israel, with our backing, proclaimed that its Lebanon campaign could only end in the total destruction and disarming of Hezbollah. From the beginning some voices said this goal was impossible, and so it is proving. The image of victory was duly modified to lesser goals as things began to go contrary to plan. Israel next wanted a 15-mile safe zone in southern Lebanon, then a one-mile zone, then an international peacekeeping force. The reality is that there's nothing left to sell but the illusion that they will win.
Wars are places where illusions go to die. A great many died after the fall of Saigon in the Vietnam fiasco, but after thirty years a new crop sprouted again. Installing democracy by force in Iraq is an illusion; deep sectarian hatred is the reality. A government of national unity is an illusion; the U.S. putting a Shi'ite sectarian president in power is the reality. Iraqi security forces are an illusion; armed thugs dressed in police uniforms to make it easier to kidnap and slaughter innocent people is a reality.
These days I think I'm like most people, exhausted from criticizing the Bush war policy. All I really want now is an honest admission, first to all Americans and then to the world, that we've stirred up far more than we can handle. Let's stop fighting over WMDs and distorted evidence and yellow cake uranium. A real crisis faces the world on an order of magnitude no one ever anticipated. Every demon has flown out of Pandora's box, and trying to market the illusion that we're winning feels like a page from George Orwell. The citizens in " were trapped in a world where war never ended, yet they woke up every morning to the cheerful news of impending victory that was just around the corner." Deepak Chopra
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Have all you right wing guys finally come to your senses?? :) paraclete answered on 08/07/06:Bad thinking, it's that sort of thinking that got america into the position in the first place. You were sold on the idea of victory, you could win, nothing could stand in your path, and nothing could be further from the truth.
Do you know why this is, because you are not realistic, you are not realists. You live in an unreal world created by Madison Avenue and you actual think the rest of the world is the same. America is an illusion, you speak of freedom but are you free, No, you are captive to the images Madison Avenue produces.
I once read a book called the fall of the towers, a strange prophetic book about a nation fighting a non existant war and that's what's happened, the towers fell and you are fighting what is essentially a non existant war | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 08/03/06 - Republicans
Hello:
I'll admit one thing. Republican chicks are much better looking than Democrats. Why is that?
excon
paraclete answered on 08/06/06:I thought it was very simple, you can fool some of the people all of the time, now how many of those women you like so much are blond? | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 08/06/06 - Cease Fire Proposal The summary text of the UN respo;ution being proposed re: Lebanon is found here :
read it if you want ;I consider it a feeble document .Maybe I missed something in the last week ;did Israeli gains nullify the threat posed to their security by an armed terrorist group on their border ? Did Hezbollah rocket barrages stop ? Did Syria and Iran stop rearming the terrorists ? Has Israels security goals been achieved ? When the inevidible breaking of the cease fire by the terrorists happens how will Israel respond with multinational forces in their lines of fire ? What is the purpose of keeping the Hezbollah supporting UNIFIL in the fray ?
Foreign Policy details the composition of a future multinational force.....Egypt, Turkey, France and Germany .whooooyaaaa ! Makes me feel much better .
Italy is probably the best of the group but internal politics in the country makes them an on again off again ally in the war against jihadistan .Egypt cannot keep a Bedoian camel jockey from smuggling weapons into Gaza. Turkey ..last seen blocking the 4th ID from opening a northern front in Iraq. France ...no comment necessary ..and perhaps the biggest irony ....the Wehrmacht being called on to protect the Jews . Why am I suspicious about who's side these troops would side with once hostilites re-commence? I see no reason why Israel should accept this charade .
To the IDF I say faster please !!! I thught they'd be swimming in the Litani river by now .
paraclete answered on 08/06/06:That's a proposal for more of the same, a proposal for containment of Israel, not containment of Hezbollah, the Germans and French to sell them weapons and the Egyptians and Turks to help them install them.
You have to wonder though, where do Hezbollah have their rockets stored, it's no small feat to hide and deploy the numbers of large armaments they have used thus far in a war zone | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 08/06/06 - Iraqi Civil War Newsweek Aug. 14, 2006 issue - "he Bush administration insists Iraq is a long way from civil war, but the contingency planning has already begun inside the White House and the Pentagon. President Bush will move U.S. troops out of Iraq if the country descends into civil war, according to one senior Bush aide who declined to be named while talking about internal strategy. "If there's a full-blown civil war, the president isn't going to allow our forces to be caught in the crossfire," the aide said. "But institutionally, the government of Iraq isn't breaking down. It's still a unity government." Bush's position on a pullout of U.S. troops emerged in response to news-week's questions about Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Warner warned last week that the president might require a new vote from Congress to allow troops to stay in Iraq in what he called "all-out civil war." But the senior Bush aide said the White House would need no prompting from Congress to get troops out "if the Iraqi government broke down completely along sectarian lines." "
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Any comments? paraclete answered on 08/06/06:ostrich thinking, if I say there is no civil war, there is no civil war, won't stop what is happening. It is becoming clear that the divide between sunni and shiite factions of islam is being fanned by Iran. If your only devinition of civil war is a divided government you are going to be caught in the crossfire. These are a barabaric people and they have their own ways of settling issues built up over generations | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 08/04/06 - A terrific article. Jonathan Zimmerman: What would Lincoln do? -- Trading our liberties for security
01:00 AM EDT on Saturday, July 29, 2006
NEW YORK
LIKE MOST of my friends and colleagues, I'm outraged by President Bush's assault on basic civil liberties in the so-called War on Terror. We invoke Thomas Jefferson on the rights of man, James Madison on checks and balances, and, most of all, Benjamin Franklin on the dangers of compromising these values: "Those who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security."
But here are two words that you'll never hear us say: Abraham Lincoln.
That's because Lincoln's wartime decisions raise the really tough issue that most Democrats continue to evade: When should we give up some liberties in the name of security? And unless we can frame an answer, we don't deserve to win Congress in November or the White House in 2008.
Consider Lincoln's predicament in April 1861, at the outset of the Civil War. Eleven slaveholding states had seceded; four "border states" -- Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and Delaware -- remained in the Union but all still practiced slavery.
To win the war, Lincoln had to make sure that these states did not also secede. Together, they would have added 45 percent to the white population of the Confederate States of America. Even more important, they would have nearly doubled the Confederacy's capacity to make guns, ammunition, and the other tools of war.
The most critical state was Maryland, of course, because it bounded the District of Columbia on three sides. On the fourth side lay Virginia, which had already left the Union. If Maryland seceded too, Lincoln would find his national capital surrounded by the enemy.
And he couldn't have that. There were clear pockets of secessionist sentiment in Maryland's biggest city, Baltimore, where many houses flew Confederate flags after the war began. So rather than risk losing the city -- and, quite possibly, the war -- Lincoln sent Army officials into Baltimore to arrest alleged secessionists and jail them at Fort McHenry. (The prisoners included a grandson of Francis Scott Key, who had written "The Star Spangled Banner" while the fort was under British fire, in 1814.)
A few months later, as the Maryland legislature was preparing to vote on secession, Lincoln had 31 of the lawmakers imprisoned on suspicion of Confederate sympathies. They stayed in jail until the next state election, to ensure that pro-Union candidates won.
No charges. No evidence. No trial.
Sound familiar?
Then, as now, the president's enemies mounted constitutional challenges to his actions. One of the people imprisoned in Baltimore, John Merryman, sued for his freedom in federal circuit court. The senior judge was none other than Chief Justice Roger Taney, a Marylander and author of the infamous Dred Scott decision. Taney ruled that Lincoln had no right to jail Merryman without cause, because the Constitution gave Congress -- not the president -- exclusive power to suspend basic liberties in times of war.
Lincoln's response? Go to hell. His primary job, he said, was to win the war, and he needed every possible weapon to do so. He refused to obey Taney's opinion, which would have freed hundreds of Confederate partisans. Who knows what they would have done if they'd been let loose?
That should sound familiar, too. Indeed, almost everything President Bush has done in the "War on Terror" echoes Lincoln's actions during the War Between the States. In the name of national security, the Bush administration has jailed suspected terrorists without showing cause. It has denied them the right to counsel and other basic liberties. It has conducted warrantless eavesdrops on phone calls and e-mails. And it has insisted that the White House -- not Congress -- has the right to do all of this, on its own.
As in the Civil War, meanwhile, the Supreme Court has sought to rein in the president. Most recently, it ruled that the White House could not establish secret military commissions without congressional authority. It's still not clear how the president -- or Congress -- will respond.
But here's what is clear: Benjamin Franklin was wrong. And Abraham Lincoln was right.
There are times when dangers are so immediate -- and so terrifying -- that we do need to sacrifice some freedoms to stop them. And the Civil War was one of those times.
Is the "War on Terror" another? Not yet. Whatever the threat of Islamic terrorism, it doesn't come close to the peril that the Confederates posed to the Union in 1861. Until President Bush can explain exactly why we need his extra-legal measures, we should all stand in opposition to them.
At the same time, though, liberals like myself need to start thinking -- and talking -- about when we, too, would give up some liberties to save the Union. A rash of suicide bombers' striking several American cities at the same time? A "dirty bomb" or nuclear attack? A smallpox or anthrax attack?
You might reply that our liberties define our nation: If we abandon them, we give up on America itself. But Abraham Lincoln said otherwise, and lucky for us. By sacrificing a bit of freedom for suspected Confederate sympathizers, he helped win freedom for nearly 4 million enslaved African-Americans.
I think it was worth it. And I bet you do, too.
Until we Democrats can specify when and how we'd take the same harsh measures that Lincoln did, we don't deserve to sit under his mantle. Or to run the country.
Jonathan Zimmerman, who teaches history and education at New York University, is the author of Innocents Abroad: American Teachers in the American Century, to be published this fall by Harvard University Press.
Source: http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/projo_20060729_29zimm.1596f33.html
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What do you think? Comments, please.
Elliot paraclete answered on 08/04/06:So that means that that isn't the land of the free and the brave afterall, but the land of do whatever it takes to win | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 08/03/06 - Bush Sends Kerry to Solve Israel-Hezbollah War by Scott Ott
(2006-07-24) — After learning that the battle between Israel and Hezbollah could have been prevented if Sen. John Kerry, D-MA, had been the U.S. Commander in Chief, President George Bush today dispatched Sen. Kerry to the war-torn region to “get this thing solved.”
Sen. Kerry, a career Vietnam veteran, who told a political gathering in Detroit yesterday that “we must destroy Hezbollah” and that the president “has been absent on diplomacy“, said he would bring his own brand of “diplomatic destruction” to the terrorist group.
“Senator Kerry’s presence and intellect alone should bring a swift end to hostilities,” said Mr. Bush, who admitted that he, and the State Department, had “kind of put the Middle East thing on the back burner” while following televised coverage of the Tour de France bicycle race.
In related news, as hostilities along the Lebanon border approached the two-week mark, the crisis was officially added to the list of “bad things that would not have happened during a John Kerry presidency.” paraclete answered on 08/04/06:What's the problem, wouldn't Clinton go? | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 08/03/06 - Aphrodite and Haphaestus ??
Should equality between the sexes be once more high on the agenda ??
paraclete answered on 08/04/06:what equality do you seek?
The equality to die in battle, few women seek such equality.
The equality to hold political office, they already have it.
Let's face it men don't seek to bear children | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 08/02/06 - Questions regarding the Qana air raid. Now that a couple of days have passed since the Israeli air raid in Qana by Israel that allegedly killed over 50 people including 35 children, what have we learned about the incident?
What I have learned is that there are more questions than answers about the incident, and that things may not be as they appear. For instance:
1) There seems to be a time discrepancy between when the air raid took place and when the building actually fell. Reports now being seen by the public state that the building fell 6-8 hours after it was hit by Israeli missiles, and the news goups on hand only started reporting the story after the building fell. Why the time discrepancy? And why were there still people in the building 6-8 hours later when the building fell, which is what caused all the deaths.
2) The "rescue worker" holding up baby corpses for the cameras has been identified as the same "rescue worker" who held up dead baby corpses for the cameras back in 1996 when Israeli missiles killed 100 in another air raid in Qana. Is this just a coincidence?
3) If the collapse of the building is the cause of death of the dead women and children in Qana, why were the corpses exhibiting a state of advanced rigor mortis... as if they had been dead for days, not hours?
4) Why did photos show a sparkling-clean pacifier on the corpse of a baby who covered head-to-toe in dust?
5) Where were all the men? All the corpses found were women and children. Where are the corpses of the men? If the building targeted by Israel was merely a civillian residential building, why were there no men in the building? Were all the husbands and fathers at work during the nightime hours? Why were there no men in the building at the time it collapsed, 8 hours after the bombs fell, if there were so many women and children in the building? Why no men?
None of this is proof that the Qana incident was staged, and I'm not actually sure whether it was or not. But it does raise some interesting questions. And given the fact that the Islamofascists have a history of making up massacres that never occured in order to get media sympathy (anybody remember the Jenin Massacre that never happened?), it behooves us to ask questions and verify information before jumping to conclusions about these events.
Elliot paraclete answered on 08/02/06:all good questions Elliot and questions unlikely to be answered in a war zone | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 08/02/06 - Stay The Course
Hello:
Stay the course. It has a nice ring to it. Kinda brings up thoughts of resolve and character - things we like our leaders to have. Stay the course is a good policy - until it isn’t.
In the beginning, we put sanctions on Cuba to help rid the Cuban people of the ruthless dictator, Fidel. It was a good policy. Its intention was goodhearted. But it didn’t work. Age took care of Fidel. The policy didn’t.
Somewhere along that 45 year continuum of “stay the course”, it stopped working, and nobody noticed. No, that’s no entirely accurate. It never did work in the first place. I suppose some thought it eventually would, but it didn't.
Isn’t a “stay the course” policy kinda like wearing blinders?
excon
paraclete answered on 08/02/06:stay the course is bureaucracy at work Ex, it's allowing process to take over from policy, this is why it can fail and noone takes any notice | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 08/01/06 - The difference between the two--take two... I apologize in advance for any content that anyone finds objectionable or offensive on the hosting site. The SITE ITSELF is NOT what I'm posting for you, ONLY the picture that should appear at that link.
Sorry it didn't work when I tried to just post the pic.
http://www.ehowa.com/showpicture.shtml?image=palestineandisrael.jpg paraclete answered on 08/01/06:I still don't know what picture you were sending but sending us a URL to a pornographic site all I can say is ~ grow up! | | Question/Answer | kindj asked on 08/01/06 - The difference between the two:
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paraclete answered on 08/01/06:two what? | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/31/06 - VERY STRANGE ?? WHY NOT ?? Hamas, Hizbullah not on Russia's terror list - Ynet News
Russia on Friday published a list of 17 groups it regards as terrorist organizations and did not include the Palestinian movement Hamas or Lebanon's Hizbullah group, both of which are regarded as terrorists in Washington. Groups on the list, published in the official daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta, included al-Qaeda and the Taliban as well as the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, a rebel group fighting for Kashmir's independence from India, and Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood.
Share your opinion!
paraclete answered on 08/01/06:why not provide the full report and not try to slant your post.
""The 17 organisations on this list have been declared terrorist... and their activities are banned on Russian territory," Yury Sapunov, head of anti-terrorism with Russia's FSB security service was quoted in the daily as saying."
That explains it fairly well, there isn't a suggestion it is a complete list but a list of those banned in Russian territory | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 07/31/06 - Our war?
Hello:
Do you think Israel's war against Hezbollah is our (the US) war too? I do.
Yet when Tony Snow, the Bush administration's spokesman, was asked on July 19 whether the president believes "that this is as much the United States' war as it is Israel's war," he answered, "No," and then tried to change the subject.
Do you know, that before 9/11 Hezbollah killed more Americans than any terrorist group ever? Their motto continues to be, “Death to America”. Why wouldn't Bush believe them - especially since they've ACTED on it???
For my part, I can’t understand why WE don’t think they’re OUR enemy. Where are the neo-cons when you need them?
excon
paraclete answered on 07/31/06:Ex, it seems you are anxious to have a gun in your hand. Hezbollah is a problem but their war is with Israel. There is no doubt that if the US gets involved then their war will be against the US too, these are localised skermishs in broad conflict.
You have to see these things in a broader way and the US is only one of the players | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 07/31/06 - Our War?
Hello again:
By the same token, why DO we think the war between the Shia and the Sunni’s in Iraq IS our war? Inquiring minds want to know?
excon
paraclete answered on 07/31/06:I don't know about you ex but I certainly don't think it's my war, there is a war on terrorists and these terrorists have turned that war into a war between sunni and shiite as well as a war against the invader, they think that by creating chaos they can succeed, they can bleed the US and the coalition until they give up | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 07/31/06 - Suicide Bombers "The most horrifying case of testosterone gone mad, of course, is not the province of the West - it's the suicide bomber, the terrorist who wants to die. The effect of this fact on modern warfare and its practitioners is one of the most fascinating and bone-chilling aspects in the world today. One suicide bomber turns out to be worth as much as a boatload of conventional weapons; one suicide bomber evens the playing field in a way that none of our current leaders seems to understand, even now. Meanwhile, the Arab world is in the midst of its own Entebbe moment, and has fallen in love with Hezbollah.
In the end, it turns out that we're living in a world where there are almost no military operations that aren't suicide missions; the difference is simply that their guys know they're on suicide missions and ours don't." Nora Ephron Blogging
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I got to thinking. It does seem that land forces are mostly suicide missions today in the war against barbarians.
What do you think? paraclete answered on 07/31/06:any soldier who goes into battle without the expectation they might not survive is not being realistic, the difference between a suicide bomber and a soldier is the soldier has a precise objective but the suicide bomber has only an idea. Muslim suicide bombers have an expectation of reward, however missguided this is, it is real to them and the only reason they would do what they do. | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 07/30/06 - HELL & HIGH WATER:
I meditate every Sunday for an hour. That being said, I'm really wondering what the future will bring for those in the Middle East et al. If we have a full-scale war (World War III), does the United States have the resources to survive? I'd sure like to have Tom's input along with yours. Thanks.
HANK
paraclete answered on 07/31/06:Are you looking for an excuse for the US to swallow more of the world's resources? It already consumes more than it's fair share.
Frankly, the US is already waging world war III and the results would suggest it may not succeed in it's objectives. It's not long ago someone was telling me the US could talk and chew gum at the same time, now you are wondering if they have enough gum. You should be concerned about what the US will do if the Hexbollah-Israeli conflict broadens, it's previous adventurism in Lebanon recieved a bloody nose, leaving it with an expection by the locals that it is easily defeated.
I think the US should withdraw now with its reputation intact before it suffers another ignominious defeat at the hand of some ill-equipped locals. | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 07/29/06 - If you wait long enough, history repeats itself.
Hello:
JEWS BEWARE!!! The world is planning another holocaust. I can see the writing on the wall.
You can't?
excon
paraclete answered on 07/30/06:The writing has been on the wall a long time, ex, and those who are planning it are Muslims | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 07/28/06 - Thank God for Bulgaria! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE ?
................................................
Bulgaria seems an unlikely country to deserve the world's gratitude. But it appears we can thank the alertness and professionalism of the Bulgarian customs authorities for saving us -- and not for the first time -- from the consequences of the incredible, almost treasonous, ineptitude, dysfunctionalism and general lack of joined-up-thinking that appears to pervade every aspect of the governance of New Labour's Britain.
Bulgarian border guards recently seized a British truck carrying radioactive material -- to the Iranian military -- that could have been used to make a "dirty" nuclear bomb.
Smuggling? Not a bit of it! The material was being sent to Mr. Ahmadinejad quite legally and with the blessing of the British government.
After a scanner showed it had radiation levels 200 times normal, the truck was found to be carrying ten lead-lined boxes addressed to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. Inside each was a soil-testing device containing radioactive caesium 137 and americum-beryllium. (Soil-testing is usually the province of agriculture, not defense, ministries.)
The head of the Bulgarian Nuclear Regulatory Agency (who knew until now that Bulgaria had a Nuclear Regulatory Agency?), Nikolai Todorov, said he was shocked that devices containing so much nuclear material could be sold so easily: "The devices are highly radioactive -- if you had another 90 of them you would be able to make an effective dirty bomb." That meant if nine similar loads got through.
According to the Daily Mail, Bulgarian customs official confirmed: "The documentation listed the shipment as destined for the Ministry of Transport in Tehran, although the final delivery address was the Iranian Ministry of Defence."
Radioactive material going to the Iranian Ministry of Defense? Could there possible be something a little, er, suspicious about this? Dr. Frank Barnaby of the Oxford Research Group (a well-credentialed think tank) said: "You would need a few of these devices to harvest material for a dirty bomb. Americum-beryllium is an extremely effective element for the construction of a dirty bomb as it has a very long half-life....It is found mainly in spent reactor-fuel elements and it is not at all easy to get hold of. I find it hard to believe it is so easily available ..."
British Labour MP Andrew MacKinlay, a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, said: "The Prime Minister has accused the Iranian Government of sponsoring International terrorism, yet his officials are doing nothing to prevent radioactive material which has an obvious dual use being sold to their military." MacKinlay, interestingly, was subsequently attacked by the Iranian Islamic Republic News Agency as having allegedly expressed support for a terrorist group.
If this was a one-off incident, it would be a bad enough indictment of the present British Government. In fact it is only the latest of a series.
On August 31, 2005, a truck carrying 1,000 kg of zirconium silicate was stopped by Bulgarian authorities at the border with Turkey. The Bulgarians, detecting unusual radioactivity levels, discovered the truck was owned by a British firm, and alerted the British Embassy, which informed London on September 7. Although the trade in zirconium is meant to be tightly controlled, the truck had traveled through Britain, Germany and Romania without being stopped. The British authorities maintained there was nothing illegal about the shipment, and it was eventually allowed to proceed.
John Large, an independent nuclear consultant, said: "It is not a very sophisticated process to extract the zirconium from such material. Even though this cargo does not fall within international control, I would still be concerned. Zirconium is used for two purposes: for cladding nuclear fuel rods inside a reactor and as material for a nuclear weapon."
Questions were asked by MacKinlay (why the Tories apparently failed yet again to challenge Labour here is unknown) under the Freedom of Information legislation in January 2006. A gobbledygook answer from the government included the information that zirconium silicate did not require an export license but "may be controlled under the UK Weapons of Mass Destruction programme end-use control, which is assessed on a case by case basis." Mr. MacKinley then asked what definition of "end-user" and "expected end-user" the government used and received the answer that:
While there is no written definition of end-user or end-use information, the end-user is the entity for which the goods are ultimately destined, and the end-use is the use to which the goods will be put. Applicants are required to declare that the contents of their application and the supporting documentation are, to the best of their knowledge, accurate.
With that informative and reassuring reply Mr. MacKinley had to be content.
The bottom line was that a British firm had been allowed to sell highly-dangerous radioactive material to Iran without scrutiny by the British authorities, and then within a few months something very similar happened again, either in bizarre obeisance to some bureaucratic legalism ("it's not on the list"), or because no one cared. Of course, lethal respect for legalisms of this sort has some tradition behind it: during the Zulu War, a large British force was wiped out when attacked because the quartermasters would not issue ammunition without forms.
Previously, in May 1999, Bulgarian customs officers trained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection discovered highly-enriched Uranium U-235 concealed in an air-compressor in the trunk of a car at a border-crossing checkpoint. It was believed this was a sample to show prospective buyers.
By Hal G.P. Colebatch
Published 7/28/2006 12:08:03 AM
Hal G.P. Colebatch is a lawyer and author and lectures part-time in legal studies at Notre Dame University in Western Australia. His book Blair's Britain was selected as a Book of the Year in the London Spectator.
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boy do I need a vacation !!!
paraclete answered on 07/28/06:what is going on, business as usual. We will sell our last enemy the weapons to shoot himself | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/28/06 - Very strange bed partners !! The Muslim civil war.
Is the Sunni-Shia divide in the Middle East now deeper than the antagonism between Israel and the Arabs? You might think so given the response of some Arab governments to Hizbollah's decision to attack Israel. Even as Israeli bombs fell on Beirut and Tyre, Saudi Arabia, perhaps the most conservative Arab Muslim state of all, openly condemned the actions of the Shia Hizbollah in instigating conflict with Israel. Never before in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict has a state that considers itself a leader of the Arab Muslim peoples backed Israel so openly.
What is going on ?? paraclete answered on 07/28/06:everything may not be as it seems, you should not believe everything you read, perhaps not even this
Tide of Arab Opinion Turns to Support for Hezbollah
Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A crowd in Cairo on Wednesday, cordoned off by the police, condemned the killing of Lebanese civilians and expressed support for Hezbollah.
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
Published: July 28, 2006
DAMASCUS, Syria, July 27 — At the onset of the Lebanese crisis, Arab governments, starting with Saudi Arabia, slammed Hezbollah for recklessly provoking a war, providing what the United States and Israel took as a wink and a nod to continue the fight.
Now, with hundreds of Lebanese dead and Hezbollah holding out against the vaunted Israeli military for more than two weeks, the tide of public opinion across the Arab world is surging behind the organization, transforming the Shiite group’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, into a folk hero and forcing a change in official statements.
The Saudi royal family and King Abdullah II of Jordan, who were initially more worried about the rising power of Shiite Iran, Hezbollah’s main sponsor, are scrambling to distance themselves from Washington.
An outpouring of newspaper columns, cartoons, blogs and public poetry readings have showered praise on Hezbollah while attacking the United States and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for trumpeting American plans for a “new Middle East” that they say has led only to violence and repression.
Even Al Qaeda, run by violent Sunni Muslim extremists normally hostile to all Shiites, has gotten into the act, with its deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, releasing a taped message saying that through its fighting in Iraq, his organization was also trying to liberate Palestine.
Mouin Rabbani, a senior Middle East analyst in Amman, Jordan, with the International Crisis Group, said, “The Arab-Israeli conflict remains the most potent issue in this part of the world.”
Distinctive changes in tone are audible throughout the Sunni world. This week, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt emphasized his attempts to arrange a cease-fire to protect all sects in Lebanon, while the Jordanian king announced that his country was dispatching medical teams “for the victims of Israeli aggression.” Both countries have peace treaties with Israel.
The Saudi royal court has issued a dire warning that its 2002 peace plan — offering Israel full recognition by all Arab states in exchange for returning to the borders that predated the 1967 Arab-Israeli war — could well perish.
“If the peace option is rejected due to the Israeli arrogance,” it said, “then only the war option remains, and no one knows the repercussions befalling the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no one, including those whose military power is now tempting them to play with fire.”
The Saudis were putting the West on notice that they would not exert pressure on anyone in the Arab world until Washington did something to halt the destruction of Lebanon, Saudi commentators said.
American officials say that while the Arab leaders need to take a harder line publicly for domestic political reasons, what matters more is what they tell the United States in private, which the Americans still see as a wink and a nod.
There are evident concerns among Arab governments that a victory for Hezbollah — and it has already achieved something of a victory by holding out this long — would further nourish the Islamist tide engulfing the region and challenge their authority. Hence their first priority is to cool simmering public opinion.
But perhaps not since President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt made his emotional outpourings about Arab unity in the 1960’s, before the Arab defeat in the 1967 war, has the public been so electrified by a confrontation with Israel, played out repeatedly on satellite television stations with horrific images from Lebanon of wounded children and distraught women fleeing their homes.
Egypt’s opposition press has had a field day comparing Sheik Nasrallah to Nasser, while demonstrators waved pictures of both.
An editorial in the weekly Al Dustur by Ibrahim Issa, who faces a lengthy jail sentence for his previous criticism of President Mubarak, compared current Arab leaders to the medieval princes who let the Crusaders chip away at Muslim lands until they controlled them all.
After attending an intellectual rally in Cairo for Lebanon, the Egyptian poet Ahmed Fouad Negm wrote a column describing how he had watched a companion buy 20 posters of Sheik Nasrallah.
“People are praying for him as they walk in the street, because we were made to feel oppressed, weak and handicapped,” Mr. Negm said in an interview. “I asked the man who sweeps the street under my building what he thought, and he said: ‘Uncle Ahmed, he has awakened the dead man inside me! May God make him triumphant!’ ”
In Lebanon, Rasha Salti, a freelance writer, summarized the sense that Sheik Nasrallah differed from other Arab leaders.
“Since the war broke out, Hassan Nasrallah has displayed a persona, and public behavior also, to the exact opposite of Arab heads of states,” she wrote in an e-mail message posted on many blogs.
In comparison, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s brief visit to the region sparked widespread criticism of her cold demeanor and her choice of words, particularly a statement that the bloodshed represented the birth pangs of a “new Middle East.” That catchphrase was much used by Shimon Peres, the veteran Israeli leader who was a principal negotiator of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which ultimately failed to lead to the Palestinian state they envisaged.
A cartoon by Emad Hajjaj in Jordan labeled “The New Middle East” showed an Israeli tank sitting on a broken apartment house in the shape of the Arab world.
Fawaz al-Trabalsi, a columnist in the Lebanese daily As Safir, suggested that the real new thing in the Middle East was the ability of one group to challenge Israeli militarily.
Perhaps nothing underscored Hezbollah’s rising stock more than the sudden appearance of a tape from the Qaeda leadership attempting to grab some of the limelight.
Al Jazeera satellite television broadcast a tape from Mr. Zawahri (za-WAH-ri). Large panels behind him showed a picture of the exploding World Trade Center as well as portraits of two Egyptian Qaeda members, Muhammad Atef, a Qaeda commander who was killed by an American airstrike in Afghanistan, and Mohamed Atta, the lead hijacker on Sept. 11, 2001. He described the two as fighters for the Palestinians.
Mr. Zawahri tried to argue that the fight against American forces in Iraq paralleled what Hezbollah was doing, though he did not mention the organization by name.
“It is an advantage that Iraq is near Palestine,” he said. “Muslims should support its holy warriors until an Islamic emirate dedicated to jihad is established there, which could then transfer the jihad to the borders of Palestine.”
Mr. Zawahri also adopted some of the language of Hezbollah and Shiite Muslims in general. That was rather ironic, since previously in Iraq, Al Qaeda has labeled Shiites Muslim as infidels and claimed responsibility for some of the bloodier assaults on Shiite neighborhoods there.
But by taking on Israel, Hezbollah had instantly eclipsed Al Qaeda, analysts said. “Everyone will be asking, ‘Where is Al Qaeda now?’ ” said Adel al-Toraifi, a Saudi columnist and expert on Sunni extremists.
Mr. Rabbani of the International Crisis Group said Hezbollah’s ability to withstand the Israeli assault and to continue to lob missiles well into Israel exposed the weaknesses of Arab governments with far greater resources than Hezbollah.
“Public opinion says that if they are getting more on the battlefield than you are at the negotiating table, and you have so many more means at your disposal, then what the hell are you doing?” Mr. Rabbani said. “In comparison with the small embattled guerrilla movement, the Arab states seem to be standing idly by twiddling their thumbs.”
Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting from Cairo for this article, and Suha Maayeh from Amman, Jordan. | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 07/27/06 - Call for All Out War So, now, alQuaeda leadership has called for all out Holy War on Israel by ALL MUSLIMS.
If this edict is a complete bust(as I think it will be), could this be considered the total defeat of Islamofascists/terrorists on our part? paraclete answered on 07/28/06:Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf, all full of huff and puff. Do we really care what al qaeda says, the world and hopefully the Muslim world knows they are extremist idiots who are as much against Muslims as they are for them | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/26/06 - Waking up from another bad dream!! "Obviously, the violence in Baghdad is still terrible, and therefore there needs to be more troops."
PRESIDENT BUSH
paraclete answered on 07/26/06:this is what is called Bush fire fighting | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 07/26/06 - Middle-East, I'm so Confused My latest thoughts.
It seems to me that perhaps the Neo-Cons who Middle-East had as their ultimate goal----> Sunnis fighting Shi'a; in other words, Muslims killing Muslims.
I don't think this is too far fetched. OK, I'm upset about War.
Is this idea too far fetched??
Condi's face and words seem to back me up. That word "sustainable". paraclete answered on 07/26/06:you certainly are confused, what purpose do you think will be served by that kind of religious war raging in the middle east. If it did erupt it would involve important oil producers and put intense pressure on western economies. The only ones who can benefit are the muslim extremeists and we have seen al qaeda try to start such a war in Iraq. | | Question/Answer | | dimwit asked on 07/25/06 - Second Lebanon Question
Hello:
My simplistic view of the world has raised a concern. Hopefully, the Wolverine, and others will set me straight.
I used to think of the US as the most dominant force on the planet. Then we lost in Vietnam. Then we lost in Lebanon in ’82. We’re losing in Iraq, and nobody has ever controlled Afghanistan.
My point is, I think the Islamists have the Americans number. Contrarily, and notwithstanding huge and longstanding lapses, I think the Israeli’s have ALWAYS had the Arabs number.
My question, and my concern is, has that equation changed?
dum
paraclete answered on 07/26/06:Which equation is that?
Might = Right?
you will always loose that one.
The one with the biggest army wins ?
I don't think that one was ever proven, ask the Persians, the French, The Germans, even the Americans
The president is god?
no, that only works for americans
Money talks, bullshit walks?
Now that has a ring of truth to it | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/25/06 - No peace without justice !! I have at last come across an article which has been written by a level-headed journalist.
I would like you to read it, here it is in its entirety.
It certainly does not hold back any punches.
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George Bush, in all his wisdom, informed the world the other day that "the root of the problem lies with Hizbollah". Wow! The oracle has spoken. The great geographer who, prior to his election to the post of the most powerful man in the world, could barely name a dozen of the world's capitals thinks that his proclamations will be readily swallowed.
The problem is far more deep rooted in the injustices of the Palestinian problem , of which Hizbollah, together with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and all the other "terrorist" groups are all products. Only last week, right wing Israelis commemorated the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in which 92 persons lost their lives. This was the work of the Irgun svai lumi, another "terrorist" group who had Menachem Begin, a future Prime Minister, among its leaders.
Among those celebrating the King David Hotel massacre was Benjamin Netanjahu, another former PM who asked those present to distinguish between "terrorists" and "freedom fighters". Two weights and two measures, you may ask. Any student of modern Middle East history will know too well.
Of course, Israel has the right to defend its territory and the lives of its citizens from the indiscriminate shelling of a fanatical paramilitary group, and, failing control by the weak central Lebanese government in Beirut, has no alternative but to cross the border and fight them in legitimate self defence. But talk of overkill. Need Israeli planes have pounded Beirut International Airport and the country's road and bridge infrastructure? And hit "targets" in central and east Beirut? All this while declaring its readiness to befriend the Lebanese people. Something is terribly wrong with Israel's actions, possibly emerging from the country's immense and justified sense of insecurity.
Meanwhile, like the US, I am ashamed to say that Europe sits back waffling about a ceasefire and a peacekeeping force. The Lebanese people, already ravaged by so much sorrow and devastation, can only crouch in a corner watching their cities, so painstakingly rebuilt after the civil wars, crumble around them. The townsfolk of northern Israel and Haifa for the first time experience the absolute terror of bombardment from the sky. Who knows - as awful as this may sound - the trauma of these days may push younger generations towards a fairer and faster peace process.
America wants to give Israel the time to clean up Hizbollah. How very naïve. After Afghanistan and Iraq, the Americans should have more than learnt their lesson. These people don't and won't go away. Like an ugly wart which is treated superficially, they will re-emerge and be the cause of more pain and instability.
They will only fade away into oblivion when there is no longer scope for them, when murderous recruits will be hard to come by, and this can only happen when the moderate, peace-loving majority of their compatriots, oppressed within their land or taking refuge outside it, will be satisfied that justice has been done.
Back to the drawing board folks, with a stronger European intervention and a US that is ready to impose peace by tightening its purse strings.
Throwing in a couple of Edward Saids with the Albrights and Kissingers of this world may make for a more even playing field. It will be painful, especially for Israel, but I fear it's their only hope. What comes after Hizbollah will only be worse.
rolcam.
paraclete answered on 07/26/06:Roland I'm not sure that is a balanced article. If I read it correctly it is saying that Israeli's taught Palistinians the art of terrorist bombing to achieve an objective. The middle east has both a long memory and a convenient memory and so does this journalist.
George Bush's attempts at a middle east peace process have been pathetic and we can thank him for the problem(s) we now have. I'm amazed he hasn't moved to do something foolish in this conflict already | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/25/06 - A good article with Comments. Please read about the latest:-
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1077362006
rolcam paraclete answered on 07/26/06:nothing new here Roland.
Let's face it Hezbollah started this conflict and have no interest in protecting the Lebanese people by withdrawing. What's worse they even think they can win because someone far away has been giving them support. Like a puppet on a string they dance to the tune of the mad men of Iran. They even have Lebanese politicians endorsing their program, that makes Lebanon fair game.
It's apparent and goes without saying that Israel is unable to distinguish between Hezbollah and any other Lebanese. It seems that if you are in Lebanon you are a target.Perhaps they should target only those with red Islamic headscarves. They might have a 50-50 chance of being right.
Should there be an unconditional cease fire. Undoubtedly, but we both know it won't happen and it wouldn't solve the problem that started this in the first place. Should there be a conditional cease fire, well that depends on the conditions, and in this world getting that sort of agreement is something we are not good at.
When do you think Israel's patience with the puppet masters will wear thin? | | Question/Answer | | dimwit asked on 07/25/06 - Lebanon Hello:
Everybody wants a peackeeping force installed between Israel and Hezbollah, but nobody wants THEIR soldiers in it. Hmmmm.
Could it be that they realize that Hezbollah will attack them too? I think it is!
dimdude paraclete answered on 07/25/06:Hello dim
actually Australia has offered to be part of a multinational peacekeeping force once hostilities are put on hold | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 07/25/06 - The new Flip Flop HEZBOLLAH 'COWARDS' TO BLAME FOR CIVILIAN SLAUGHTER: U.N. BIG
By URI DAN, with Post Wire Services
July 25, 2006 -- JERUSALEM - The top U.N. humanitarian official yesterday charged that Hezbollah is fighting like cowards and causing the deaths of hundreds of innocent women and children in Lebanon.
In scathing comments, U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland accused Hezbollah of "cowardly blending" among civilians and said he was appalled that the group was proud that more innocents had died than its own fighters.
"Consistently, from the Hezbollah heartland, my message was that Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending . . . among women and children," Egeland said at Larnaca airport in Cyprus after visiting Lebanon to coordinate an international aid effort.
"I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this. I don't think anyone should be proud of having many more children and women dead than armed men," Egeland added.
The terrorist group has built bunkers and tunnels near the Israeli border to shelter weapons and fighters, and its members easily blend in among civilians.
"We need a cessation of hostilities because this is a war where civilians are paying the price," said Egeland, who was heading to Israel next.
Egeland had previously called Israel's offensive "disproportionate" and "a violation of international humanitarian law."
Early this morning, Israel took control of the town of Bint Jbail in southern Lebanon following hours of intense fighting, Israeli radio reported. And the army said the fighting wasn't over yet.
Dozens of Hezbollah fighters were killed in the besieged terrorist stronghold, the Israeli military said.
Four Israeli soldiers also died - two in a helicopter crash and two in the fighting at Bint Jbail, known as "the capital of the [Hezbollah] resistance" and is believed to hold the group's largest arsenal in the area.
Israel has already taken Maroun al-Ras, another Hezbollah stronghold in southern Lebanon.
In other developments:
* Hezbollah guerrillas fired 80 more rockets into Israel, wounding 13 people, despite the steady push of Israeli ground troops north of the border.
* Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah claimed he told "some of the main political leaders" in Lebanon he planned the July 12 kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, which triggered the border war.
"And nobody said to me 'You are not allowed to abduct Israeli soldiers,' " he told al-Jazeera TV.
* Four U.N. peacekeepers were wounded, one seriously, in the crossfire between Israel and Hezbollah in South Lebanon, U.N. officials said.
* Israeli diplomats around the world have been warned to beware of terrorist attacks because Hezbollah activated "sleeper cells" abroad. Missions and other diplomatic offices have been put on high alert, sources said.
* The White House said declaring a truce would not be enforceable now.
"I think the notion that you have a cease-fire at this point is unenforceable and does not really get us to the point we need to be at," presidential spokesman Tony Snow said in Washington.
* Hamas and other groups in Gaza are reportedly ready to accept a cease-fire deal that would include the release of Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped on June 25.
The Palestinian Agriculture Minister told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Shalit would be returned if Israel guarantees the future release of Palestinian prisoners.
. In Lebanon, Israelis attacked 20 more missile launchers yesterday, but there are many left, officials said.
In the fighting at Bint Jbail, an estimated 100 to 200 Hezbollah holdouts were under siege by about 6,000 Israeli soldiers. At least 20 Israelis were wounded.
Much of Bint Jbail's population of 30,000 had fled. But the outnumbered holdouts put up ferocious resistance, Israeli officials said.
Some 300 Americans and 100 Europeans are believed to be trapped in villages south of Tyre, said a German official involved in evacuation efforts.
About 11,700 Americans have fled Lebanon since the conflict began, the State Department said.
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Yesterday Egelund said that Israel's actions are illegal. Today, he says that Hizbollah are cowards, and they are happy about civillian casualties. Is this a flip flop? Did Egelund not know what was going on before he shot his mouth off yesterday? Does this flip-flop constitute a change in the UN's position? Does it matter?
We also hear that members of the Lebanese government knew about the kidnappings and missile attacks in advance... but nobody told Nasrallah that kidnapping soldiers is a bad thing, and the poor, stupid, rag-head couldn't figure it out on his own.
And in other news...
-------------------
CONDI SERVES RICE SURPRISE
By DEBORAH ORIN
July 25, 2006 -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday launched a Mideast shuttle diplomacy mission with a surprise stop in shell-shocked Lebanon, where she spelled out her terms for a cease-fire.
Rice's rules - backed up by the White House - stress that any cease-fire must be part of a broader deal that cracks down on how Hezbollah terrorists use southern Lebanon as a base to attack Israel.
"The situation on the border cannot return to what it was before July 12," she firmly told Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, in Beirut.
It was July 12 when Hezbollah crossed the border and kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, touching off the war that has devastated Lebanon, which is caught in the crossfire.
Rice's proposal was rejected by Berri, who demanded a cease-fire followed by a prisoner swap for the two Israeli soldiers, and then broader talks.
But Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora's office suggested he was more receptive and discussed Rice's ideas and "ways of developing them."
Rice also offered sympathy plus $30 million in humanitarian aid but rejected Lebanon's plea for an instant cease-fire that leaves Hezbollah in place - she said any cease-fire must be "sustainable."
That means a buffer zone of around 20 miles - longer than the range of the Katyusha rockets that Hezbollah fires across the border into Israel, she said.
Rice's plan, based on U.N. resolution 1559, also calls for an international force deployed along the Israeli-Lebanese border to keep Hezbollah from using it as a military staging area.
Rice later flew to Israel. Today she'll also meet marginalized Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas before flying to Rome to meet other leaders and try to spearhead a solution.
"Any peace is going to have to be based on enduring principles and not on temporary solutions," Rice said after meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. "The free world is facing a threat, the goal of Hezbollah is to set the world aflame and we will not let them succeed."
A central strategy for Rice and President Bush is to get other Arab states, like Egypt and Jordan, to pressure Syria to stop backing and arming Hezbollah.
The theory is that those Arab states are also worried about Hezbollah because of its links to the non-Arab state of Iran with its radical Shiite mullah leaders.
Rice's message to Lebanon's fragile government is that removing Hezbollah would be a big step toward finally giving it real control over its entire territory.
She also stressed that Lebanon's government - which claims it can't control Hezbollah and includes Hezbollah sympathizers like Berri - must sign any cease-fire and take responsibility for it.
"If there is a cessation of hostilities, the government of Lebanon is going to have to be the party," she said.
"Let's treat the government of Lebanon as the sovereign government that it is."
Saniora warmly greeted Rice with kisses on both cheeks as she arrived on a heavily armed helicopter from Cyprus because Israeli bombing has closed Beirut's airport.
Saniora also told Rice that Israel's bombardment has set his country "backwards 50 years" as he pleaded for an immediate cease-fire, his aides said.
Assistant Secretary of State David Welch said Berri claimed a prisoner exchange would fix other problems but "that is not what we think."
Hezbollah kidnapped the soldiers in hopes of a prisoner exchange - and Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrullah told Al Jazeera TV that he alerted the Lebanese government before kidnapping the soldiers.
Back in Washington, White House press secretary Tony Snow stressed that Rice speaks for the president: "There's no give on this. The United States believes in a sustainable cease-fire."
He said that means Hezbollah must return the two kidnapped Israeli soldiers and remove the rockets that have been shelling Israel.
"The sustainable cease-fire is one that is not going to enable Hezbollah to declare victory," Snow added, making clear that a cease-fire that leaves Hezbollah in place would do just that.
"You've got to keep in mind, the aggressor in this case is not Israel, it's Hezbollah," Snow added. "Hezbollah crossed over into Israeli territory and kidnapped two soldiers."
deborah.orin@nypost.com
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It seems that the Lebanese Parliment's speaker, Nabih Berri is a Hizbollah sympathizer and ally. It also seems that he is prepared to reject any cease-fire negotiations that don't include a prisoner exchange (presumably in the ratio of 100-1).
Here's my prisoner exchange plan: in exchange for releasing the Israeli kidnapees, Israeli will grant you your life, and that of your countrymen. Since Lebanon's total population is approximately 3,800,000, I'm sure that an exchange ratio of 1,900,000-1 will satisfy even Mr. Berri.
What say you?
Elliot paraclete answered on 07/25/06:So this justifies the use of cluster bombs, I expect. Israel has indiscriminately attacked areas where there are civilian populations. both sides are making cowardly attacks. Israel has the right to defend itself not make war on Lebanon. The Israeli solution is to level the areas where Hezbollah might exist, a scorched Earth policy rarely works. Yes it is possible Israel faces a cowardly enemy, that is the essential characteristic of the terrorist but it doesn't justify the use of cluster bombs on civilian populations.
Israel 'using cluster bombs' around civilians
July 25, 2006 - 9:22AM
Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of using artillery-fired cluster bombs that disperse after impact in populated areas of Lebanon.
The human rights organisation's researchers said cluster munitions were used in an attack on the village of Blida in southern Lebanon on July 19, killing one and wounding at least 12 civilians, including seven children.
Human Rights Watch said its researchers photographed cluster munitions in the arsenal of Israeli artillery teams on the Israel-Lebanon border.
"Cluster munitions are unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when used around civilians," Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
"They should never be used in populated areas."
In a preliminary response, the military said in a statement that its "use of weapons and ammunition conform with international law. The specific claims are being checked based on the information provided to us".
Human Rights Watch quoted eyewitnesses as saying Israel fired several cluster munitions at Blida around 3pm (local time) on July 19. The witnesses described how the artillery shells spread hundreds of cluster submunitions around the village.
The alleged cluster attack killed 60-year-old Maryam Ibrahim inside her home and seriously injured Ahmed Ali, a 45-year-old taxi driver, who lost both his legs, the group said. Five of his children were wounded.
Human Rights Watch said it believes that the wide dispersal patterns of munitions makes it difficult to avoid civilian casualties if civilians are in the area.
"Our research in Iraq and Kosovo shows that cluster munitions cannot be used in populated areas without huge loss of civilian life," Roth said.
"Israel must stop using cluster bombs in Lebanon at once."
An Israeli Defence Forces statement later said: "The use of cluster munitions is legal under international law and the IDF uses such munitions in accordance with international standards".
"We are checking the specific details of the incident mentioned in the report."
Human Rights Watch said it had photographed M483A1 artillery shells stored on the Israeli side of the border, which deliver 88 cluster submunitions per shell and have a failure rate of 14 per cent, often leaving behind dangerous unexploded shells.
It said it believed the use of cluster grenades in populated areas could violate a ban on indiscriminate attacks contained in international humanitarian law.
AP, Reuters | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/24/06 - UN official: Israel action illegal !!
THE United Nations' top humanitarian official yesterday accused Israel of violating international law, as at least ten more civilians died on both sides of the Lebanese border and diplomatic efforts to end the conflict intensified.
Do you consider it illegal ?
paraclete answered on 07/24/06:quite possibly just as the invasion of Iraq violated international law, but I don't see anyone who is likely to prosecute it. | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/24/06 - Back to the OLD DAYS : Please see a back to the old days maxim:-
DIVIDE AND CONQUER.
see:- http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/washington/23diplo.html?th&emc=th
Any reason why the U S A should be putting
their NOSE where it is not really required? paraclete answered on 07/24/06:either you want it to stop, or you don't, which is it? Remove Syrian support from Hezbollah and they will have to move, it also an effective strategy for dealing with Iran | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 07/23/06 - Is this the answer? Here's a novel solution to a long standing problem, now how many salute it. By the way, I don't say I necessarily endorse it as a good solution, but it's the first constructive piece I've seen hereabouts in a long time.
Just a thought
If a kid at school fought with the other kids every day of his life, he'd be expelled. If, as an adult, he fought every day of his life with his neighbours, someone, somewhere in the halls of authority, would insist that he be moved, to some neighbourhood where his presence was tolerated, if not appreciated. There would come a point where it would cease to matter whose fault all the trouble had been - whether the kid at school was being "picked on", or whether the man's actions were purely in self defense - because fights are contagious and, if a daily occurrence, the odds are on that some innocent bystander's going to cop a haymaker to the belly. Israel has been at war every day of its life, with nearly all of its neighbours. I say it's time to move Israel along, to a place far out of harm's way. Anyone who thinks that idea "anti-Semitic" should consult their encyclopedia for the differences between Judaism and Israel, politics and religion, geography and biology. But, just to deflect such broadsides - and because I think it's a good idea anyhow - I'm going to suggest Israelis come here, to Australia, which I would hardly do if I harboured some unsavory distaste for them. That said, I'd suggest they consider Tasmania, a place twice the size of Israel and arguably much prettier, where people of "Middle-Eastern appearance" are as uncommon as they are welcome. I'd only ask that they treat their welcomers kindly, as Tasmanians can be punchy lot and we don't want any trouble. If anyone's got any better ideas I'd be happy to take receipt of them.
Jack Marx
July 24, 2006 08:20 AM
paraclete answered on 07/24/06:Mat, you have done well. Tasmanians are always complainingg we leave them off the map of Australia. This way we solve two problems at once and who knows, it may also make the perfect place for boat people since the Spirit of Tasmania will no longer run | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/23/06 - Lebanon: pity the nation !!
There seems to be no end in sight to the war in Lebanon. The situation seems to be getting worse by the day. I have yet to meet any level-headed analyst or observer who believes that Israel's response was not disproportionate.
The whole issue is intolerable.
rolcam
paraclete answered on 07/23/06:I think you should correspond with the Israeli Government and voice your concerns, but be sure to add your solution which isn't just cease fire. Why are you such a bleeding heart on this one, we haven't heard you lament Iraq or Afganistan yet the american response is disproportunate | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/23/06 - ISRAEL'S RESPONSES !! Comments about the latest happenings :-
EXAMPLE 1.
"If I punch you in the face, you have no right to shoot me with a revolver."
eXAMPLE 2.
"It was not a case of an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth. In this case we have ten eyes for an eye and ten teeth for a tooth."
rolcam paraclete answered on 07/23/06:Roland
How many times do we have to say it. Israel's reaction isn't to an isolated incident, but to the last in a long chain of incidents. Sooner or later if your neighbour is dumping his garbage in your yard you are going to throw it back over the fence | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/23/06 - Your View ?? Are Israel's military tactics justified? paraclete answered on 07/23/06:which tactics do you refer to Roland or are we to presume you are making a sweeping statement framed as a question? I suspect you are taking your lead from the Vatican who are not noted for their lack of partisan politics.
Israel moved across the border and attacked a Hezoballah stronghold. Since Hezbollah as been firing rockets into Israel this tactic is entirely justified as is any other strike against Hezbollah
Israel moved into Gaza and attacked Hamas who similarly were launching rockets.
Israel is entitled to protect it's citizens and unfortunately to do so it has entered into a war against the territorty of a neighbouring state.
What you have done is refuse to look at this thing as a whole and have siezed upon two isolated incidents in a tome of incidents to
berate Israel. I think basicly Israel has demonstrated restraint for some considerable time but has reached a stage when direct action appears preferable.
The Muslim populations of this region refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of the existence of the state of Israel and so are reaping the results of their actions. As you sow, so shall you reap, the Hamas and Hezbollah sowed the wind and reaped a whirlwind. They are incapable of understanding that the possession of a gun doesn't mean you can beat a well trained and determined army.
Ask yourself whether Hamas and Hezbollah have any concern for the civilian populations they hide among. No they don't, they use these people as a human shield and expect to get away with it. When will we see a question from you asking whether the Muslim tactics are justified?
The answer to your question is : on the balance YES! | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 07/22/06 - Afghanistan Close to Anarchy "The most senior British military commander in Afghanistan yesterday described the situation in the country as "close to anarchy" with feuding foreign agencies and unethical private security companies compounding problems caused by local corruption.
The stark warning came from Lieutenant General David Richards, head of Nato's international security force in Afghanistan, who warned that western forces there were short of equipment and were "running out of time" if they were going to meet the expectations of the Afghan people.
The assumption within Nato countries had been that the environment in Afghanistan after the defeat of the Taliban in 2002 would be benign, Gen Richards said. "That is clearly not the case," he said yesterday. He referred to disputes between tribes crossing the border with Pakistan, and divisions between religious and secular factions cynically manipulated by "anarcho-warlords".
Corrupt local officials were fuelling the problem and Nato's provincial reconstruction teams in Afghanistan were sending out conflicting signals, Gen Richards told a conference at the Royal United Services Institute in London. "The situation is close to anarchy," he said, referring in particular to what he called "the lack of unity between different agencies".
He described "poorly regulated private security companies" as unethical and "all too ready to discharge firearms". Nato forces in Afghanistan were short of equipment, notably aircraft, but also of medical evacuation systems and life-saving equipment.
Officials said later that France and Turkey had sent troops to Kabul but without any helicopters to support them.
Gen Richards will also take command of the 4,500-strong British brigade in Helmand province at the heart of the hostile, poppy-growing south of the country when it comes under Nato's overall authority. He said yesterday that Nato "could not afford not to succeed" in its attempt to bring long-term stability to Afghanistan and build up the country's national army and security forces. He described the mission as a watershed for Nato, taking on "land combat operations for the first time in its history".
The picture Gen Richards painted yesterday contrasted markedly with optimistic comments by ministers when they agreed earlier this month to send reinforcements to southern Afghanistan at the request of British commanders there. Many of those will be engineers with the task of appealing to Afghan "hearts and minds" by repairing the infrastructure, including irrigation systems.
Gen Richards said yesterday that was a priority. How to eradicate opium poppies - an issue repeatedly highlighted by ministers - was a problem that could only be tackled later....." guardian dot com dot uk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Comments??? paraclete answered on 07/23/06:poppy and Talaban eradication have the same priority, let's face it anachy is worth a lot to Afganistan, it keeps international interest and funding for a regime that couldn't exist without american help, now where have we seen that before? | | Question/Answer | | purplewings asked on 07/22/06 - Whatever party you belong to, this is darned funny. From a show on Canadian TV there was a black comedian who said he misses Bill Clinton.
"Yep, that's right - I miss Bill Clinton! He was the closest thing we ever got to having a black man as President.
Number 1 - He played the sax.
Number 2 - He smoked weed.
Number 3 - He had his way with ugly white women
Even now? Look at him... his wife works, and he don't! And, he gets a check from the government every month.
Manufacturers announced today that they will be stocking America's shelves this week with "Clinton Soup"in honor of one of the nations'most distinguished men. It consists primarily of a weenie in hot water.
Chrysler Corporation is adding a new car to its line to honor Bill Clinton. The Dodge Drafter will be built in Canada.
When asked what he thought about foreign affairs, Clinton replied, "I don't know, I never had one."
The Clinton revised judicial oath: "I solemnly swear to tell the truth as I know it, the whole truth as I believe it to be, and nothing but what I think you need to know."
Clinton will be recorded in history as the only President to do Hanky Panky between Bushes."
My question is: Do you miss having Bill Clinton as President?
I got to say, if nothing else, he was darned interesting. paraclete answered on 07/23/06:I feel it's a shame america can't produce a better class of politician, must be something in the water | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 07/21/06 - The ground offensive has begun .... according to the very reliable Strategic Forecasting Inc.( STRATFOR )
Given that it is a little disturbing that they are painting it as almost a win-win situation for Iran.
Summary
Israel launched ground operations into southern Lebanon overnight July 20-21, deploying at least five brigades, including paratroopers, commando forces and a tank brigade. These forces are encountering heavy resistance from Hezbollah. Israel's ground campaign, however, will not stop at southern Lebanon. The move to the Litani River is only the first phase of the operation.
Analysis
Israel has launched ground operations into southern Lebanon, deploying at least five brigades overnight July 20-21, including paratroopers, commando forces and a tank brigade. These troops are encountering heavy resistance from Hezbollah forces, who are armed with anti-tank missiles for use against Israel's Merkava tanks. The Hezbollah forces also are holed up in underground shelters, bunkers and tunnels -- all well-defensible positions.
From Israel's perspective, the ground campaign cannot simply be into southern Lebanon. Though an initial push up to the Litani River will recreate a buffer zone to the north of Israel, Hezbollah has demonstrated a longer-range missile capability, making the buffer zone less effective. In addition, now that Israel has made the final political and military decision to move into Lebanon, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) or the Israeli government cannot stop short of inflicting severe damage on Hezbollah capabilities. This means the move to the Litani is only the first phase of the operation. IDF will next move into the Bekaa Valley, where heavy casualties are expected on both sides.
For Hezbollah, whose leader Hassan Nasrallah has shown he is very much still alive despite Israeli airstrikes, the question is how best to counter the Israeli ground invasion. There are two main options. First, Hezbollah could remain in its defensive positions and inflict as many casualties on the invading Israeli forces as possible. Second, it could fade into the villages and hills, allow the Israeli forces to move in, and then begin a guerrilla war against the occupying forces.
Given the current intensity of fighting, it appears Hezbollah is choosing the former. Israel has little intent to remain a long-term occupier in Lebanon; it is not in the country for nation-building. It has a clear military and political objective, and wants to move quickly, employ overwhelming force and withdraw. If Hezbollah decides to lay low, it might not get the opportunity to launch a sustained guerrilla offensive, as Israeli forces will not remain in Lebanon.
However, putting up a stiff resistance -- taking out some of Israel's Merkava tanks and weakening the image of the Israeli military -- will demonstrate the strength and will of Hezbollah and slow the Israeli advances. And the longer Israel is in the ground phase, the more opportunities Hezbollah forces have to employ the modern weaponry they now possess.
In the midst of all of this, the visit of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the region is to take place sometime next week. Washington is using the promise of the visit to block other diplomatic missions. Rice will go when Israel is near its objectives. If her visit takes place some time mid- to late next week, it would be in keeping with Israeli expectations -- though not necessarily with reality. Israeli sources are not brimming with confidence in terms of the immediate outcome of the ground offensive -- Hezbollah has surprised Israel with capabilities and discipline.
From Tehran's perspective, it both weakens Israel's image of invulnerability and, in tying down the Israeli forces in intense combat, creates a situation in which international diplomatic pressure on Israel can rise quickly. Though Tehran could lose much of Hezbollah's fighting capability to Israeli forces, it hopes to gain political strength regionally, reshape the impression of Israeli military might, and create tensions or rifts in relations between western nations and Israel.
From the Iranian/Hezbollah point of view, the fighting capabilities of the Lebanese Shiite guerrilla movement can be rebuilt as has been the case in the past. In a way, the question is whether Hezbollah's military capabilities are destroyed before the diplomatic process kicks in, or whether it will be the other way around. It should be noted that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reportedly has said the war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon would continue until it no longer is "worth the price."
The Iranians also have placed the Sunni Arab states in a bind, forcing them to balance their desire to counter Iranian/Shiite moves with the need to oppose Israeli actions in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. This dynamic also could widen the Shiite-Sunni rift in the region -- possibly spreading the sectarian conflict beyond Iraq.
...................................................
as of right now I can find no other confirming source that the offensive has begun but STRATFOR is usually ahead of the curve and I did see Israeli tanks lined up on the news this morning . I tend to agree that Rice going on a peace-mission next week would be counter-productive . The very notion of not negotiating with terrorists get's destroyed the minute she begins her shuttle diplomacy . As I have stated before I would much prefer having someone like Joint Chief of Staff General Pace contribute a Marine's point of view to our position .
paraclete answered on 07/22/06:It seems that if there is a war on terror then we can expect some fighting with terrorists, great pity the US is letting someoneelse fight their battles | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 07/22/06 - Our War with Iran being fought through Surrogates "Ted Koppel has one of his semi-regular op-eds today in the New York Times, except it is less op-ed than a reported piece based on a conversation Koppel had with a senior Jordanian intelligence official, who warned Koppel about Iran's growing power in the Middle East. "The United States is already at war with Iran," Koppel begins. "But for the time being the battle is being fought through surrogates."
Koppel goes on to note that "over the past couple of months alone, he told me, Hamas has received more than $300 million in cash, provided by Iran and funneled through Syria" and "the more than 12,000 missiles and rockets...in Hezbollah's arsenal were largely provided by Iran." Here's the important passage:
When Sheik Qaouk talked about Israel and Hezbollah, his organization's ambitions were not framed in purely defensive terms. There is only harmony between Hezbollah's endgame and the more provocative statements made over the past year by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president. Both foresee the elimination of the Jewish state.
Are the Israelis over-reacting in Lebanon? Perhaps they simply perceive their enemies' intentions with greater clarity than most. It is not the Lebanese who make the Israelis nervous, nor even Hezbollah. It is the puppet-masters in Tehran capitalizing on every opportunity that democratic reform presents. In the Palestinian territories, in Lebanon, in Egypt, should President Hosni Mubarak be so incautious as to hold a free election, it is the Islamists who benefit the most.
But Washington's greatest gift to the Iranians lies next door in Iraq......and so on...." Article on the Huffington Post Blog.
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It is not WWIII, it is a War with Iran???
Comments.... paraclete answered on 07/22/06:War with Iran? this is the secret war as distinct from the cold war | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/22/06 - I AM VERY DISAPPOINTED !! This statement is very disappointing:-
QUOTATION OF THE DAY N Y TIMES. July, 22 2006.
"What I won’t do is go to some place and try to get a cease-fire that I know isn’t going to last."
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, the secretary of state, on the fighting in Lebanon.
Are you disappointed??
paraclete answered on 07/22/06:I don't expect anything else from people who haven't any new ideas. | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/22/06 - THE BIG BULLY !! This is exactly what I meant about the BIG BULLY !!
SEE:- http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/22/world/middleeast/22military.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
Honest members should judge for themselves.
rolcam. paraclete answered on 07/22/06:if they are such a big bully they could end the conflict by denying Israel arms shipments, no it's business as usual with the US getting as much out of it as they can | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 07/21/06 - Ahmadinejad letter to Merkel... "It's rather weird"
Iran leader asks Merkel for help on Zionism -German official
20 Jul 2006 17:37:49 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Louis Charbonneau
BERLIN, July 20 (Reuters) - A letter written by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to German Chancellor Angela Merkel asks her to help solve the Palestinian problem and deal with Zionism, a German government official said on Thursday.
"There's nothing about the nuclear issue (in the letter)," the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity due to the extreme sensitivity of the issue for the German government.
"It's all related to Germany and how we have to find a solution to the Palestinian problems and Zionism and so on. It's rather weird," the official, who has seen the letter, said.
Iranian students news agency said on Wednesday that Ahmadinejad had written to Merkel, but until Thursday officials had not spoken about the contents.
Zionism is a political movement that supports a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, now the state of Israel. The fate of Palestinian Arab refugees is one of the world's largest and most long-lasting refugee problems.
Berlin's relations with Ahmadinejad have been complicated by his denial of the Holocaust, in which Germany's Nazi regime killed six million Jews, and his call for Israel to be wiped off the map.
Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany punishable with up to five years in prison.
"It's extremely touchy (for the German government)," said the official, adding that the government did not yet know if or how it would respond. "There are a lot of propaganda phrases about Israel and the Jews inside."
In May Ahmadinejad wrote U.S. President George W. Bush an 18-page letter discussing religious values, history and international relations.
In it, he took swipes at Israel and at the United States.
He sharply criticized Bush on many fronts, implying that the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, abuses of detainees in U.S. prisons in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib -- and his staunch support for Israel -- were somehow inconsistent with Bush's Christian beliefs.
But the letter to Merkel was different and was not confrontational in tone, the official said.
"It's not negative like Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush. He is not criticising Germany," he said. "It's basically about how we have to work together and solve the problems of the world together."
In February, Merkel compared Ahmadinejad's statements and stance to Adolf Hitler's rise to power when he and his Nazi party began threatening to exterminate European Jewry.
"Remember that in 1933 many people said it was just rhetoric," Merkel said.
The German official said it was interesting that the letter did not discuss Iran's nuclear standoff with the United States, European Union and other countries.
Iran is facing possible action at the U.N. Security Council over suspicions that it is developing nuclear arms. Tehran denies the charge, saying it is working on nuclear fuel only to run power stations."
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I think 'rather weird' is an understatement.
Comments? paraclete answered on 07/21/06:so he thinks he can exploit Bush's insult and drive a wedge in the G8. I think his moves will be seen for what they are, a smoke screen until he can achieve his nuclear objectives | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/21/06 - All that is over now.??
For 2 soldiers captured and 29 Israeli's dead, 309 persons in Lebanon has to die.
For 1 soldier captured, more than 60 Palestinians has to die.
Compared with their former stance this violence is excessively disproportionate.
rolcam.
paraclete answered on 07/21/06:Please tell us, if you can, what is an appropriate response?
What is proportunate?
to take one Palistinian and two hezbollah hostage?
They would laugh because their mindset is to die for the cause.
No matter how much we all deplore what is happening, the reality is we don't live there and we have no idea of how to respond.
Dispite your previous comments to my answers on this subject, I think Bush has abdicated his responsibility as a world leader and I agree Israel's reaction is over the top but I don't live there under the threat of daily extremist attack. If I did, I might think the response is appropriate. As far as I'm concerned murderers, kidnappers and terrorists don't warrant any protection nor do any people who harbour them | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/21/06 - Is this really realistic ?? jackread one of our esteemed members suggests in
one of his posts:-
" Wipe them off the face of the earth".
He is actually referring to both of the warring parties.
Who is going to do the wiping off?
Annihilate each other?
Some mighty other party/parties to do it for them?
Is this really realistic??
rolcam. paraclete answered on 07/21/06:It is clear you don't understand the jewish greeting "shalom" and the mindset behind it.
In the middle east they think in absolutes | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 07/20/06 - "Survivor Lebanon" "Bush greenlights Israeli bombing of Lebanon with 25,000 Americans in-country and no plan for evacuation. Just like what happened when Katrina struck New Orleans, once again Amercans are left on their own while Republican government pursues a hidden ideological agenda and protects the interests of a select few." Dave Johnson
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Comments? paraclete answered on 07/21/06:you know this represents the chance to get rid of an old enemy, GWB isn't about to pass up the chance to settle one more score. Don't worry, you'll get them out somehow, just as we will get the thousands of Australians trapped there out too. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 07/20/06 - Have we had enough ? That's what Victor Davis Hanson wants to know .
Yet for all their threats, what the Islamists—from Hezbollah in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley to the Iranian government in Tehran to the jihadists in Iraq’s Sunni Triangle—don’t understand is that they are slowly pushing tired Westerners into a corner. If diplomacy, or aid, or support for democracy, or multiculturalism, or withdrawal from contested lands, does not satisfy radical Islamists, what would?
What then would be the new Western approach to terrorism? Hard and quick retaliation—but without our past concern for nation-building, or offering a democratic alternative to theocracy and autocracy, or even worrying about whether other Muslims are unfairly lumped in with Islamists who operate freely in their midst.
Any new policy of retaliation—in light both of Sept. 11 and the messy efforts to birth democracies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and the West Bank—would be something of an exasperated return to the old cruise-missile payback. Yet in the new world of Iranian nukes and Hezbollah missiles, the West would hit back with something far greater than a cruise missile.
If they are not careful, a Syria or Iran really will earn a conventional war—not more futile diplomacy or limited responses to terrorism. And history shows that massive attacks from the air are something that the West does well.
What the critics of the neo-con approach like George Will fail to grasp I think is that what is being tried here is in fact a different out come from the staus quo appease and support despots for the sake of stability or the clash of cultures that Samual Huntington predicted .
George Will mistakes the Madhi Hatter in Tehran with Joe Stalin but it is not a valid comparison .The holocost denying Ahmadinejad has more in common with Hitler and he could never have been deterred . He had to be defeated .Stalin's doctrine spoke of an inevidibility of the fall of capitalism while Ahmadamadingdong has a specific timeline in mind. I am actually quite suprised by Will . He was a fond supporter of Reagan ,and Reagan was not content to leave status quo alone for stabilities sake .Reagan recognized an evil and confronted it .I Have to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he is just tired of the struggle .Either that or he spent too much time surrounded by Sam Donelson ,Cokie Roberts and George Stephenwolf .
Furthermore containment came at a pretty hefty price ,not just in Americans lost ,but in the total number of casualties in the various proxy wars ,and of course the millions of slaughtered civilians in the gulags around the globe.Containment worked - but only if you think of the horrible death of 100 million lives .
The premise that containment worked in Iraq is false for many of the same reasons mentioned above . Had it worked there would be no reason to be there now. As I've mentioned many times ,t barely put a chink in his life style . In fact violations in sanctions guaranteed that he could hold out until predictably the feckless West grew tired of "punishing him" (besides ....he kept his population in line to the tune of hundreds of thousands slaughtered ...if that's your idea of stability then count me out ). Imagine today if Saddam was not removed .Israel no doubt would be looking at another front in their struggle.
paraclete answered on 07/21/06:yes it's time to say enough | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 07/20/06 - FALSE PROPORTIONALITY !! The actual situation is much worse than as reported in mainstream newspapers. Here are some facts:
¤ Israel's ongoing siege of the Gaza Strip is producing a dire shortage of water, food, medicine, and electricity - a form of collective punishment.
¤ Israel is deliberately destroying the civilian infrastructure in Gaza - a form of collective punishment.
¤ Israel destroyed Gaza's only power plant with the result that in Gaza's main hospitals, infant incubators, dialysis, and oxygen machines stopped running - a form of collective punishment.
¤ Israeli fighter pilots are causing supersonic booms that terrorise the population - a form of collective punishment.
¤ Children are psychologically harmed by the systematic, around the clock use of sonic booms - resulting in panic attacks, sleep disturbances, bedwetting and other detrimental effects - a form of collective punishment.
¤ Since the bombing of the power station, treatment plants cannot pump and treat sewage in Gaza - a form of collective punishment.
¤ Sonic booms are leading to spontaneous abortions (miscarriages) and premature births - a form of collective punishment.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's tactic is to "apply pressure" to the civilian population of Gaza. Collective punishment violates the Hague Convention as well as the Fourth Geneva Convention and constitutes a war crime.
"No general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, shall be inflicted upon the population on account of the acts of individuals for which they cannot be regarded as jointly and severally responsible" - article 50 of the Hague Convention.
"No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed" - article 33, Fourth Geneva Convention.
These war crimes are being committed with weapons supplied by the United States, including fighter planes manufactured by Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
The use of US-made weapons to target civilians violates the US Arms Export Control Act as well as the Geneva Conventions.
The sonic boom raids are a clear violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Israel is a signatory.
"In accordance with their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect the civilian population in armed conflicts, states parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure protection and care of children who are affected by an armed conflict" - article 38, Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Israel has a responsibility to protect its population from armed attack. Equally all civilians - whether in Palestine, Israel, or Lebanon - warrant protection.
paraclete answered on 07/20/06:ordinary israeli'es are killed by Palistinian suicide bombers ~ a form of collective punishment.
The State of Israel is attacked by Hamas and Hezoballah ~ a form of collective punishment.
Israeili's are bombarded by hamas and hezbollah rockets ~ a form of collective punishment.
No convention protects the citizens of Israel from these attacks ?
Take your one sided argument and place it where it will do the most good. There are two sides to every argument and at the moment there are excesses by both sides
| | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 07/19/06 - Bush Gropes Two Women at G8 Converence Time for the President to go on some really strong meds. He groped a female oboe player, then the next day, groped THE CHANCELLOR OF GERMANY. paraclete answered on 07/20/06:that caption should have read Bush groping in the dark | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 07/20/06 - Iraq Reality verses Bush Administration Fantasy "After the last three years, I didn't think I could be surprised by the level of cluelessness exhibited by the Bush administration when it comes to Iraq. Then I picked up this morning's New York Times.
But before we get to the jaw-dropping money quote that leaves no doubt the Bushies continue to view Iraq through zealots' eyes, let's start with a bracing shot of reality: the United Nations report on Iraq [pdf] released yesterday.
It paints a devastating -- and wrenchingly specific -- portrait of a country in bloody chaos.
First the numbers: 14,338 civilians killed in the first half of 2006. And, according to the UN report, civilian carnage is on "an upward trend," with more than 5,800 deaths and 5,700 injuries in the last two months. Indeed, on average, more than 100 Iraqi civilians were killed per day in June -- the highest monthly total since U.S. forces took control of Baghdad.
The report also puts a human face on those numbers and on the rampant violence raging in the country. It offers examples of homosexuals who have been targeted by militias and death squads because of their sexual orientation. And it's not just gays facing intolerance. The UN cites the case of an Iraqi tennis coach and two of his players who were gunned down in Baghdad because... they were wearing shorts! Forget the fashion police; we're talking fashion assassins. Others were targeted because their hair styles or facial hair didn't conform to the rules of the extremists now in control on both sides of the sectarian divide.
And according to the report, women have lost many of the freedoms they used to enjoy. In parts of Baghdad, they "are now prevented from going to the markets alone." They've also been warned not to drive cars and have been harassed for wearing pants. What's more, a new regulation dictates that women wishing to apply for a passport or travel abroad must be accompanied by their husbands or another male member of their family. And not wearing a headscarf can now mean being targeted for attack -- all the more troubling for the tens of thousands of non-Muslim Iraqi women.
The report also details kidnappings and acts of violence directed at children, including the chilling tale of a 12 year old boy named Osama who was kidnapped, raped, and grotesquely murdered -- hanged by his own clothing -- even though his family paid a $30,000 ransom.
This report is dripping in blood and suffering -- a stark reminder of the turmoil our failed invasion of Iraq has wrought. A point driven home yet again by Tuesday's suicide bombing in Kufa that saw at least 57 killed and 105 wounded when a man, on the pretext of offering work, drew a crowd of day laborers to his vehicle then blew them all up.
Which brings us back to the Bush administration's refusal to allow facts to interfere with its Iraq delusions. The latest proof of this deadly disconnect from reality comes courtesy of U.S. energy secretary Sam Bodman, and can be found buried near the end of the New York Times' story on the UN report.
According to the Times, Bodman, who is in Baghdad meeting with Iraq's oil and electricity ministers, "had a rosy view of progress here since his last visit in 2003."
Here is what Bodman told the Times "in an interview in the fortified Green Zone": "The situation seems far more stable than when I was here two or three years ago. The security seems better, people are more relaxed. There is optimism, at least among the people I talked to."
Raising the question: Just who the hell was he talking to? "People are more relaxed"? "There is optimism"? "The security seems better"? What country was he describing? Surely not the one he was sitting in.
Security in the meeting rooms of the garrisoned Green Zone may be better than it was in 2003, but the rest of Iraq is descending into what one Sunni leader described as "nothing less than an undeclared civil war."
"God knows what comes next," read a statement released by the Iraqi Islamic Party in reaction to the escalating violence. The group urged the nation's leaders "to lead Iraq out of this dark tunnel."
But while those in the midst of the mayhem see a dark tunnel, those in the Bush administration continue to see nothing but blue skies. Even as suicide bombs explode and the 2006 civilian death toll races toward 15,000, for the Bushies it's all relaxation and optimism.
Unbelievable. And sickening. And clueless, clueless, clueless." by Arianna Huffington, blogging
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It's always a bad idea to live in a fantasy world.
Comments? paraclete answered on 07/20/06:but you know how it is the rah, rah, boys (skulls) don't allow critism. you always have to have the positive spin even when things are bad, you know how it goes, it's always darkest before the dawn, etc. this guy just wants to keep his job | | Question/Answer | | sissypants asked on 07/19/06 - veto what is your opinion on stem cell research? paraclete answered on 07/20/06:sometimes I think science goes too far and this is one of them | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 07/17/06 - Ten more years ... or longer? Military leaders foresee Iraq exit in 2016
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published July 17, 2006
U.S. war commanders think some level of American forces will be needed in Iraq until 2016 and those forces will receive continued support from the vast majority of Iraqis.
At the tactical level, the U.S. is getting better at detecting deadly improvised explosive devices (IEDs), especially using unmanned spy planes. But the enemy is growing more sophisticated. A raid on an IED factory earlier this year netted two bomb-makers who hold master's degrees in chemistry and physics -- from U.S. colleges.
These were among the points made by Iraq war commanders at a closed-door conference last spring at Fort Carson, Colo., home to the 7th Infantry Division. Maj. Gen. Robert W. Mixon Jr., the division's commander, invited scores of retired generals and admirals in the Fort Carson area to hear the commanders and give them feedback.
Lt. Col. David Johnson, division spokesman, said the session was the second held this year at Fort Carson. A third is planned for the fall.
"The whole point is to share knowledge of what is going on in the Army today and to share ideas in an open forum," Col. Johnson said. The Fort Carson-area retired community has "a lot of knowledge and a lot of experience, and we wanted to tap into that," he said.
The seminar is just one example of how the Army is constantly re-examining how it conducts the war on terror in Afghanistan, Iraq and worldwide.
Some say the military has a near-obsession with scrutinizing each and every mission and listing things that could have been done better. At Fort Leavenworth, Kan., the Center for Army Lessons Learned collects volumes of after-action reports and commanders' insights and turns them into "lessons learned" reports distributed throughout the Army.
Out in the field, commanders learn lessons on the spot. When Brig. Gen. Kurt Cichowski, chief of staff for strategy at the U.S. Iraq command, was asked earlier this month by reporters how the security crackdown in Baghdad was going, he answered, "I will tell you that there's an evaluation that is going on right now about the entire operation that has started, and those are the kinds of lessons learned that we hope to tease out of what has happened in order to improve it for the future."
At Fort Carson, among the featured combat veterans was Col. H.R. McMaster, whose 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment gained fame by liberating the northern town of Tal Afar from foreign terrorists and Iraqi insurgents. The town's mayor, Najim Abdullah Abid al-Jibouri, penned an open letter in February thanking the American troops for his people's liberty. The mayor visited Fort Carson in May to personally thank the soldiers and their families.
One retired officer attendee made notes and e-mailed his minutes of the session to other officers. The notes say there was general agreement on one issue: the "mainstream media" largely ignores progress. A commander said an embedded reporter filed a generally positive story on the operation in Tal Afar, only to see his stateside editors gut it and apply a negative spin.
In fact, editors have grown increasingly resistant to embedding reporters with combat units, something they demanded be done before the invasion in March 2003. The purported reason: They think contact with U.S. service members hurts the reporters' objectivity.
"They come to see the world through the eyes of the troops," said the retired officer's e-mail. Now, newspapers and magazine rely heavily on Iraqi stringers who telephone in reports from various combat scenes.
"We are clearly winning the fight against the insurgents, but we are losing the public relations battle, both in the war zone and in the States," said the e-mail.
Insurgent infiltration of the Iraqi Security Forces is also a big problem. A Green Beret caught a police lieutenant directing by telephone the placement of an IED so it would damage a coalition convoy.
Copyright © 2006 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Is withdrawal by 2016 too optimistic? paraclete answered on 07/18/06:Does the US ever leave any place it's ever been? | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 07/17/06 - EDGAR Cheney's secret service name is Edgar. I thought, yeah, as in Edgar Allan Poe the American writer of dark stories...what a perfect name. But NO! it stands for Edgar Bergen, you all remember Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy!! lolol...
The secret service knows the score.
jack paraclete answered on 07/18/06:so that makes George Charlie | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 07/16/06 - BUSH!
Is Bush the most powerful man in the world?
HANK
paraclete answered on 07/17/06:we can be sure he is the most powerful moron in the world, but he is closely followed by many others | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 07/17/06 - Republican Party in Shambles Today on a talking heads show, Newt Gingrich said we are in WWIII.
Condi Rice says that democracy is just around the corner in the Middle East.
So Neo-Nazi Board members and rational thinkers, what is it? paraclete answered on 07/17/06:It's just what George said it is, a war to establish democracy in the Middle East, and the prognosis is that it will get worse before it gets better. You know how it goes and the only thing missing is the word, Juden, but since Israel has started an offensive, that may soon be used too. | | Question/Answer | | dimwit asked on 07/16/06 - Victory or Retaliation?
Hello:
The War on Terror could be conducted to produce either of those results. Which one would you opt for? Do you think there's a difference? Which one SHOULD we be waging? Which one ARE we waging?
Could you say the Dems would wage one kind of war, intending to produce one of those results, while the Republicans would wage the other intending to produce the exact opposite result?
Could one side say they were attempting to achieve victory, while secretly enjoying the enemy’s demise? Could the other side openly enjoy the enemy’s misery, and call for more, while pretending it seeks only victory? Could one side say everything and do nothing, while secretly enjoying OUR demise?
Finally, is retribution wrong? Should it be evenly parsed out, or should you hit back with everything you've got?
dim
paraclete answered on 07/16/06:you know as well as the rest of us the objectives were 95% retaliation and 5% victory, if it were otherwise OBL would have been captured if the first few days. This was a media war, a war firstly of words so the politicians could say look what we have done, we have knocked over a country hardly capable of defending itself and denied the enemy a base | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 07/15/06 - 'Frozen Assets' William Jefferson This week, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan upheld the May 20th FBI search of Dem. Rep. William Jefferson's office. Jefferson, who is under investigation for bribery and was caught with $90,000 hidden in his freezer, maintains that the search was a violation of the Speech and Debate Clause of the Constitution, which allows congressional representatives privacy in conducting government business. Judge Hogas said the "government has demonstrated a compelling need to conduct the search in relation to a criminal investigation involving very serious crimes and has been unable [to obtain] the evidence sought through any other reasonable means"
Judge Hogan also outright rejected the argument by Jefferson's attorney Robert Trout and House leaders Dennis Hastert and Nancy Pelosi that the search violated the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches :
"Rather, the principle of the separation of powers is threatened by the position that the Legislative branch enjoys the unilateral and unreviewable power to invoke an absolute privilege, thus making it immune from the ordinary criminal process of a validly issued search warrant."
Trout wants to appeal the decision, but Judge Hogan said the material seized in the raid can be immediately reviewed by the Justice Department, so it is unlikely this stall tactic will keep the investigation from moving forward.
paraclete answered on 07/16/06:seperation doesn't mean immunity, it's not a license to do what ever you want to, although the point appears lost on the Bush administration | | Question/Answer | | Fritzella asked on 07/15/06 - Kicking Open a Hornet's Nest "Sometime in the fall of 2002, I likened a U.S. invasion of Iraq to "kicking open a hornets' nest." I predicted that, if the Iraqis decided to fight in the cities, our casualties would be between five and ten thousand U.S. troops at least. Now, U.S. casualties exceed 20,000.
But the "hornets' nest" I predicted was not just an interminable and
intractable U.S. occupation of Iraq. It was wider war in the Middle East. The larger hornets' nest is now swarming.
By our justified overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan, though unsuccessful decapitation of al Qaeda, we removed a thorn in Iran's side. By removing Saddam Hussein, we removed a thorn in Iran's other side.
But, inadvertantly and ignorantly, we empowered Iran to undertake a major intervention on behalf of the Shiite majority in Iraq. In response to our insistence that Iran not develop any nuclear capability, Iran and Syria have emboldened Hezbullah in Lebanon to energize Israel's formidable military and Hamas to do the same.
The U.S. is fighting a two front war with Afghanistan and Iraqi insurgents. Israel is fighting a two front war with Lebanon and the Palestinians.
Wouldn't you think this would be exactly the time when the nation's wisemen, those neoconservative idealists who saw the great American empire imposing democracy on the Middle East at the point of a bayonet, who secretely envisioned Iraq as our military base in the region, to be heard from? Of course, I mean Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Steven Cambone, and so many triumphalist others so present on the talk shows in early 2003. Haven't seen much of them recently.
Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are left to manage the disaster. You don't hear either one of them linking their arrogant decisions four years ago to the disaster unfolding in the Middle East.
We have some lessons in democracy to be learned here at home. Democracy does not work without accountability. Today there is no accountability in American democracy.
On the other hand, perhaps there will be in 2006 and 2008...if the Democrats recapture conviction and courage." Gary Hart
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What about the 125,000 or so troops in Iraq who are potentially trapped in a potential mounting hornet's nest? Surrounded. paraclete answered on 07/15/06:what's this? Fort Apache all over again. The hostiles are massing behind that ridge, sir!
Do you mean to say that the US can't talk and chew gum at the same time. That was the analogy used when I suggested sometime ago that the US would have to pull out without victory just as it did in Vietnam, the US pull out of Vietnam was followed by the Russian incursion into Afganistan, a result the US and others are still paying for today. Seems it's time for the braggart yankees to pack up and go home. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 07/14/06 - "It almost sounded like a Tom Clancy novel" That's what Tongsun Park's lawyer sdaid ion testimony . Sadly ,sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
Guilty!
Some Oil-for-Food justice served.
By Claudia Rosett
Oil-for-Food has had its first airing in federal court, and the verdict is in. South Korean businessman Tongsun Park was accused of conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in shaping the United Nations Oil-for-Food program. He has been found guilty.
Park’s conviction comes at a time when the scandal-ridden U.N. is demanding $1.8 billion for the renovation of the same Turtle Bay headquarters where the grand U.N. conclave has been failing utterly to cope with such urgent matters as the nuclear crisis in Iran, the missile crisis in North Korea and the long-running genocide in Sudan. Against this backdrop, Park’s trial can be viewed as the best argument in ages for letting the U.N. even stay in the country. The U.N. itself operates immune to any system of justice, with a resulting lack of accountability that explains much of its corruption, both financial and political. But at least the U.N.’s current location puts within reach of the law some of the private players who feed illicitly off the U.N. stew of money, secrecy, diplomatic immunity, and privilege.
A few other countries deserve respect for delving into their own roles in the $18 billion or more in exploitation, scamming, skimming, and oil smuggling that flourished under the U.N.’s relief program for Iraq. Australia, India, and even France have launched inquiries. But in scores of U.N. member states where Oil-for-Food left a wide and greasy trail — in Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Tunisia, and Vietnam, to name just a few — the idea of any serious investigation is apparently seen as a complete joke. In places such as Canada, home to tantalizing leads, the authorities appear to be snoozing at the switch. On Cyprus, where former Oil-for-Food director Benon Sevan now resides beyond reach of U.S. extradition, there has been no visible follow-up by Cypriot authorities to allegations by the U.N.’s own $35 million probe that Sevan took $147,000 in Oil-for-Food payoffs. (Sevan says he is innocent.)
So, as with billions in U.N. funding, the burden falls on the U.S. — where prosecutors in lower Manhattan have been slogging for the past two years through the sludge of the uptown U.N. According to testimony heard in Park’s trial over the past three weeks, the U.N.’s presence from 1992-2002 turned Manhattan into one of the hubs of an influence-peddling scheme that ran from Baghdad to the U.N. executive floor. Along the way agents of Saddam served as couriers of cash, messages and clout via such places as New York coffeeshops, restaurants, hotels, and the upmarket Sutton Place official residence of the U.N. secretary-general.
These were among the haunts of the 71-year-old Park, who was not officially employed by the U.N. (at least not that we have heard) — but who made a specialty of working its fancier venues. Park is a jet-setting businessman who has kept offices in Seoul, London, and Washington, among other places. He previously made a splash on the U.S. scene as a central figure in the 1970s congressional bribery scandal known as Koreagate. In that episode, he testified in exchange for immunity.
By the 1990s, Park was cultivating high-level contacts at the U.N. He paid frequent visits in the early 1990s to former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali; then got into business arrangements — including a million-dollar oil company deal — with longtime U.N. eminence Maurice Strong, who worked in 1996 for Boutros-Ghali, and then served from 1997-2005 as one of Secretary-General Annan’s most senior advisers. Strong, during the first few years of the current nuclear standoff with North Korea, from 2003-2005, was Annan’s personal envoy to the Korean peninsula.
As Park’s trial has played out over the past three weeks, the details heard by the jury have been both complex and appalling. The testimony included an explanation by a State Department witness of the machinery of Oil-for-Food itself, details of Jordanian bank transactions, and accounts by a cooperating government witness, Samir Vincent, of stacks of cash totaling $1 million passed to Park, promises of much more to come, and of Vincent’s many trips to U.N.-sanctioned Baghdad — including a 1993 sit-down with Saddam (see photos posted on my trial blog).
Enough has emerged at this trial to invite plenty of comment in coming days. But right now, this much is clear. A jury of twelve ordinary Americans, none of them high-flying diplomats, none of them nurtured in the bubble world of the U.N., sat patiently through the testimony, and looked at the evidence. Unlike some of the most vocal defenders of the U.N., they held no board seats on U.N.-related foundations, they had no history of jetting around the world to U.N.-related conferences at five star hotels and Swiss resorts. And, in weighing the evidence, they had no information about Koreagate, which was not mentioned at the trial lest it prejudice the case.
The jury saw the exhibits and heard the questioning of witnesses in open court — unlike the interviews carried out solely in private by Paul Volcker’s secretive probe, commissioned by the U.N. Then the jurors sat down and used their common sense. We now have a verdict that begins to cut through the massive haze that has surrounded the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal, in which, at the U.N. itself, not a single official has even been fired, let alone required to face a prosecutor in open court.
The next trial related to Oil-for-Food is scheduled for November, before the same federal judge, Denny Chin, and involving other alleged members of the conspiracy in which Park took part. Park’s sentencing is scheduled for October 26. According to his lawyer, he is “very disappointed” with the verdict.
A spokesman for the current government of Iraq takes a different view. Following the verdict on Park, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York issued a press release quoting Ambassador Feisal Amin al-Istrabadi, the deputy permanent representative to the U.N. from the Republic of Iraq:
“Individuals like Tongsun Park, who actively represented the interests of the former regime in international matters and were willing to take money for those efforts from that regime, strengthened that regime and led to the continued repression of the people of Iraq. The Republic of Iraq is grateful for the hard work and dedication of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the FBI for pursuing this case and continuing to investigate criminal wrongdoing related to the Oil-for-Food Program.”
— Claudia Rosett is a journalist-in-residence at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
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According to the prosecution Park had strong connections to such UN luminaries as former Sec. Gen. Boutros-Boutros-Ghali and Canadian "environmentalist" (author of the Kyoto treaty who made his billions in the energy industry);AND senior advisor to United Nations' Secretary General Kofi Annan. Maurice Strong. He is currently President of the Council of the United Nations University for Peace. (UPEACE or as it is more likely to be called in the future P.U.)
Now can we please extradite Maurice Strong and put him on trial ?
paraclete answered on 07/15/06:we know the whole thing was a wrought and the snouts were in the trough from all over. If Bush hadn't invaded Iraq none of this would have come out. Should we be suprised by this, no, we know the whole arab world is corrupt and this is the way business is done, each intermediadary taking their cut. The UN should have been above that, but it wasn't, so take the blame where it lies to the Secretary General of the UN | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 07/14/06 - US vetoes Israel condemnation . If the vote in the Security Council is not proof positive that the UN is a useless organization then nothing is. The US had to block a Condemnation vote sponsored by Qatar. You remember them don't you ? They are one of those Emerates that we were going to have manage our East Coast ports .Ten of the Security Council's 15 member-nations voted in favour of the draft. Four countries abstained (Peru, Denmark (, Slovenia and Britain )while the US killed the text by using its power of veto. Sure enough the MSM is chiming in saying we are going it alone .
Yeah right ;we should abandon our ally in their time of greatest need . We should join the Axis of Appeasers of jihadism . US Ambassador John Bolton had asked that the resolution be worded to add that Israel was responding to rocket attacks against Israel and the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit. But the Security Council with most of the members openly hostile to Israel and the rest of them with their heads in the sand could not acknowlege where the provaction came from .
It is told that the blue helmets in Lebanon garrison in quarters near Hezbollah camps . Prior to any attack on Israel they get in their SUVs and 'patrol'some other sector . When the IDF sees their vehicles disappear they know it will be a hot time tonight. paraclete answered on 07/15/06:look we all know it's all a game. The UN was deliberately structured so that it would be ineffective. No country should have the power to veto a majority resolution. | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 07/13/06 - Reflections on War, Detention and Rights ... ... ... ...
Reflections on War, Detention and Rights
By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: July 13, 2006
Mamdouh Habib, an Australian who says he was tortured in Egypt before being sent to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for intense interrogation and indefinite detention, had reason to be wary when a man claiming to be his lawyer came to see him in the fall of 2004.
The lawyer, Joseph Margulies, had anticipated the reasonable fears of a client who for years had been tricked, disoriented, humiliated and worse. He had a letter of introduction from Mr. Habib’s wife, Maha. But American interrogators had once falsely told Mr. Habib that his wife was dead, and Mr. Margulies feared that his client would think the letter a forgery or the product of coercion.
As backup, Mr. Margulies came armed with a few memories Mrs. Habib had shared with him about her husband: “the location of their first date, the first gift he gave her, and the people who looked after their youngest son when their oldest boy was ill.”
“There is no reason to repeat those private reminiscences here,” Mr. Margulies writes in “Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power,” “but suffice it to say, they worked. When I shared that information with Mamdouh, he began to cry.”
The detention centre at Guantánamo Bay, created in early 2002 to hold suspected terrorists, is still home to about 450 prisoners. Mr. Margulies filed suit on behalf of four of them, including Mr. Habib, just months after the first Guantánamo camp was built. For the next two years the Bush administration refused to let the four men know about the suit, much less meet with their lawyer.
It was in that case, Rasul v. Bush, that the Supreme Court in June 2004 landed the first body blow to the Bush administration’s assertion that it has the unilateral power to designate people as terrorists and then hold them forever without charges. Mr. Margulies’s meeting with Mr. Habib followed the Rasul decision.
Last month, in a kind of sequel to Rasul, the Supreme Court said the administration’s plans for trying Guantánamo prisoners using secret evidence offended both military justice and international law. The administration and Congress are at work recasting those plans, and the Pentagon announced this week that it will comply with an important provision of the Geneva Conventions, the one prohibiting “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.”
Mr. Habib was lucky in his lawyer, as Mr. Margulies is a resourceful advocate, a serious and sober legal analyst and a fine, sometimes luminous writer. In his new book Mr. Margulies weaves together a history of wartime interrogation, a consideration of the legal standards that apply to it and an assessment of the toll that Guantánamo has taken on the men and boys held there, and on the nation’s reputation and values.
The book’s title, with its dry allusion to the separation of powers, does not do it justice. “Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power” represents the best account yet of what Mr. Margulies calls “a human rights debacle that will eventually take its place alongside other wartime misadventures, including the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the prosecutions under the Espionage and Sedition Acts during World War I, and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War.”
The first problem in considering Guantánamo is one of metaphor. It is a prison, certainly, but not one meant to mete out punishment for past crimes. It is a kind of prisoner-of-war camp too, a way to incapacitate supposed combatants for the duration of hostilities so that they cannot return to the field of battle. But here the hostilities — the so-called war on terror — may last forever. And the battlefield is the globe.
Most crucially, Guantánamo is an interrogation chamber. To be effective, administration strategists said, it should operate outside the American legal system, “without the risk,” Mr. Margulies writes, “of interference by courts and counsel into the delicate ‘relationship’ between interrogators and prisoners.” And to be more effective yet, they went on, the prisoners had to be denied the protections of the Geneva Conventions.
Until Guantánamo, the United States had an excellent reputation for the humane treatment of captured combatants. During World War II, for instance, Mr. Margulies writes, when more than 400,000 German, Italian and Japanese prisoners of war were held in the United States, their captors followed the Geneva Conventions “with an almost compulsive regard.” Because the conventions require that prisoners be afforded the same living conditions as their guards, for instance, American camp commanders ordered their own soldiers to sleep in tents until barracks for the prisoners were completed.
The Guantánamo prisoners, by contrast, were made to endure stress positions, extreme temperatures, sleep deprivation, blaring music, strobe lights, religious insults and sexual humiliation. Three prisoners there recently committed suicide.
In “Oath Betrayed” Dr. Steven H. Miles, an expert on medical ethics, collects evidence that “armed forces physicians, nurses and medics had been passive and active partners in the systemic neglect and abuse of prisoners” at Guantánamo, in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
In his short, passionate and disjointed book, made up mostly of information from raw documents, reports and news accounts, Dr. Miles allows outrage to substitute for analysis. Still, he collects countless examples of medical complicity in abuse that is all the more disturbing for the lack of any notable protest. Doctors have, Dr. Miles writes, certified prisoners as healthy enough to withstand harsh treatment, monitored them during interrogations and concealed evidence of their mistreatment.
“Enough practitioners complied when they should have resisted, or kept quiet when they should have spoken out,” Dr. Miles writes, “to allow abusive interrogational practices and a neglectful prison environment to operate largely without medical opposition or disclosure.”
Lawyers were also slow to rise to the challenge of Guantánamo. In the early days the establishment bar and even some of the major civil rights groups held their fire, leaving it to Mr. Margulies and a handful of other lawyers — notably those of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, Thomas B. Wilner of Shearman & Sterling in Washington and Clive Stafford Smith in New Orleans — to file the most important American lawsuits since the Sept. 11 attacks. In an aside on page 158 of his book, Mr. Margulies notes that he was not paid for his work on the Rasul case.
Inside the government, though, the situation was more complicated. Lawyers in the military and the State Department fought an honourable if largely losing battle to try to preserve the Geneva Conventions.
In 2002 Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld described those held at Guantánamo as “among the most dangerous, best trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth.” But a recent study prepared at the Seton Hall University School of Law shows that just 8 percent of the detainees were even said by the government to be Al Qaeda fighters.
More than 300 Guantánamo detainees have been released or transferred, Mr. Habib among them. The United States government never charged him with a crime, and he is back in Australia, a free man.
---
GUANTÁNAMO AND THE ABUSE OF PRESIDENTIAL POWER, By Joseph Margulies
322 pages. Simon & Schuster. $25.
OATH BETRAYED - Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror,
By Steven H. Miles, M.D.
220 pages. Random House. $23.95.
===
Where now?
paraclete answered on 07/14/06:Habib is an unlikely case for you to take up, Habib was released and is closely watched, we have not heard the explanation of what he was doing in Afganistan at the height of hostilities in that place but he is typical to these terrorist enthusiasts. However, one thing is certain, he has little to say about his experiences
Why not take up the case of Hicks, perhaps the facts are a little clearer but still very muddied, after all he was fighting for the Taliban before the american intervention, hardly a crime, but certainly in the wrong place and as it turns out on the wrong side. | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 07/13/06 - For Paraclete - More heroes. Here are a few more stories we never hear about.
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V Corps Tanker gets Silver Star for heroism in Iraq December 14, 2004
HEIDELBERG, Germany (Army News Service, Dec. 14, 2004) -- Spc. Micheaux Sanders deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 fresh from Army basic training.
Sanders tank crew and two others from his unit – C Company, 2nd Battalion, 37th Armor -- were called to the aid of a 1st Cavalry patrol trapped in an ambush by Iraqi insurgents.
“There were blown up Humvees all over,” said Sanders.
“They were throwing everything at us,” said Sanders. “They were shooting AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades, pistols, shotguns and throwing grenades.”
The tankers fired back, but were low on ammunition. Because the unit had been scheduled to move, the tanks had been prepared for transport, and were carrying only a minimum load of ammo.
Sanders said he did his best, standing exposed to the enemy in one of the tank’s hatches and firing whatever he or his fellow crewmembers could find.
A round struck Sanders in the arm, slicing straight through his shoulder and out the other side, but he says he barely noticed, waving off the medics who tried to come to his aid.
When the bullets ran out, Sanders still wouldn’t give up.
“I threw whatever I had at them,” he said. “When we ran out of bullets, I threw rocks.”
Sanders was awarded the Silver Star when the 1st Armored Division was welcomed home to Germany in October.
(Editor’s note: Information provided by Spc. Rebecca Burt, V Corps Public Affairs Office.)
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Veterinary nurse honored for heroism in Iraq War By Keryn Page
MISSISSIPPI STATE -- Shandon Gifford feels honored to receive the Soldier’s Medal for his heroic actions in the Iraq War, but he said the support he received during and after his service is more valuable than any award.
Gifford, who served as a medic in Iraq with the Mississippi National Guard’s 223rd Engineering Battalion in 2003, is a surgical nurse with Mississippi State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. He was honored with the U.S. Army’s Soldier’s Medal during a special ceremony held at Camp McCain near Grenada July 15.
“Since I got back from Iraq and since I got this award, people at the vet school have been thanking me for my service and congratulating me on my award. During my deployment, I got to come home for two weeks around Christmas, and the people here at the vet school were so good to me during that time,” Gifford said. “I haven’t gotten the opportunity to thank everyone for their concern. It means so much to me.”
Gifford said his friends and co-workers at the veterinary college also supported and encouraged his family, with calls to his wife to ask if they could help her in any way.
Gifford received the award for his actions during about one hour on May 7, 2003. Explosions were a normal part of daily life in Iraq, but Gifford said the explosion that day was “too close for comfort.” After hearing mention of a casualty over the radio, Gifford and Lt. John Paul went out to assess the situation.
U.S. soldiers had been using bulldozers to clear a known minefield, so Gifford originally suspected one of the mines inadvertently had been detonated. But what Gifford and his lieutenant found was much more sinister: they believe two men intentionally set fire to the minefield, causing mortar rounds and land mines to start exploding.
“We got out there and Lt. Paul said, ‘You know this is a minefield. You don’t have to go out there.’ But I knew he wouldn’t be able to treat injuries and drive the ambulance by himself,” Gifford said. “He offered three times to let me stay -- reminding me that I had a wife and children back at home to think about -- but I refused and said I was going to do my job.”
Under heavy fire, Gifford and Paul finally discovered a Bradley fighting vehicle that had been hit by a mortar round.
“The tank commander of that vehicle was coming up through his TC (tank commander) hatch when the round hit his vehicle and knocked the periscope completely off. Luckily the round didn’t explode when it hit the vehicle -- it blew up beside the vehicle -- but the periscope hit the tank commander in the head,” Gifford said. “We treated the casualty and took the wounded man back to the aid station to reevaluate him and confirm he was not seriously injured.”
Paul nominated Gifford for the Soldier’s Medal the next month. This award is given to soldiers who risk their own lives to save the life of another soldier. Usually during war time, Gifford’s actions would have earned him a Bronze Star with a V device for valor. But because enemy action couldn’t be proven on that chaotic day, Gifford was eligible for the Soldier’s Medal.
“The men we believe set fire to the minefield jumped back into their vehicle when we went out to investigate,” Gifford said. “Our Humvees couldn’t catch up to this vehicle, so we weren’t able to catch the saboteurs. As a result, enemy action could not be proven.”
Paul’s nomination documents emphasize the heroism of Gifford’s actions.
“While rushing through a hail of rocket fire and exploding ordnance, Sgt. Gifford narrowly missed being hit several times, but continued forward without hesitation or thoughts of his own safety,” Paul wrote. “With no way to suppress the incoming fire, he pressed on through multiple explosions until he was able to reach and evacuate the wounded soldier.”
Gifford insisted he was simply doing the job he was trained to do. He said any soldier in a similar situation would take the same risk.
“Lt. Paul was a good officer and he taught me a lot. I consider him a friend, and I knew one person couldn’t do this job alone,” Gifford said. “You try not to think about it being a dangerous situation and try to focus on the wounded soldier out there. I’m the one who’s been trained to help him. If not me, who’s going to do it? I just focused on that and did the best job I could.”
Gifford’s award makes him the most decorated soldier from Mississippi in the Iraq War. He served in the National Guard for 12 years and was activated, though he never went overseas, during the first Gulf War.
“I joined in ’89 when a friend tricked me into stopping by the Army recruiting unit. He said he had to talk to somebody and asked me to come in with him. We walked straight into the recruiter’s office, and they started working on me,” he said. “I believe the decision to enlist was the first adult decision I made in my life.”
After basic training, Gifford took advanced individual training and became a medical specialist. That training qualified him to be an Emergency Medical Technician, which got him interested in nursing. Gifford then attended East Mississippi Community College and became a Licensed Practical Nurse in 1991.
Gifford joined the CVM staff in 1998 as a surgical nurse in the Animal Health Center. His five-year pin for working at the CVM was waiting on his desk when he got back from Iraq, and two years later, he’s still wearing it proudly on his lab coat.
Gifford is married to Elaine, and they have two daughters, Amber, 12, and Tori, 8. They live in Starkville.
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122nd pilots earn medals for heroism in Iraq tour
December 20, 2005 (by Lieven Dewitte) - Three Indiana Air National Guard F-16 pilots, Lt. Col. Stohler, Capt. Rusch, and Capt. Frazier, were honored for their role in protecting soldiers on the ground in Iraq.
The three pilots fly with the 122nd Fighter Wing of the Indiana Air National Guard based in Fort Wayne.
Lt. Col. Michael D. Stohler, 38, Capt. Timothy D. Rusch, 33, and Capt. Brian K. Frazier, 35, were awarded the high-ranking Air Medal for single acts of heroism and achievement during their 100-day tour of duty in Iraq last year.
This is the first time members of the Fort Wayne unit have received Air Medals tied to a single event. Ten F-16 fighter pilots from Fort Wayne's 122nd went on the mission that spanned the months of May through September 2004. Their mission was to give air support to Army and Marine ground troops.
Rusch, a part-time pilot with the 122nd, destroyed three buildings in Samarra, Iraq, from which insurgents were shooting at Army soldiers. When the buildings were crushed, the shooting stopped, eliminating the threat, he said.
This latest mission in Iraq was drastically different from the several other times the pilots had been sent to Iraq. Before, they had patrolled the no-fly zone for Iraqi aircraft. This time, they were in a combat zone watching over ground forces.
This mission was "more satisfying" than the previous ones, Frazier said.
The job was drastically different from the previous ones but that didn't throw them off. Because the 122nd practices every day for missions like this, the whole event had a routine feeling to it when they were in the air. "It just seemed like training and that's good," Stohler said.
The only difference of course was that a real weapon came off the jet...
The 122nd successfully completed their first overseas deployment with the F-16C when they deployed to Egypt in February 1993. The exercise, "Coronet Avenger," served as a training exercise, testing the capability of the unit to deploy and operate at an overseas location.
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Corpsman Awarded Silver Star for Heroism in Iraq
Navy News | Bill W. Love | April 28, 2006
Corpus Christi, TX. - Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class (FMF) Juan M. Rubio, 32, of San Angelo, Texas, was awarded the Silver Star Medal April 27 for conspicuous gallantry against the enemy Jan. 1, 2005, while serving as a Marine Platoon corpsman in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).
The Silver Star Medal is the U.S. Navy’s third highest award for gallantry in combat, following the Navy Cross and the nation’s highest award, the Medal of Honor.
Rear Adm. Thomas R. Cullison, commander, Navy Medicine East and commander, Naval Medical Center, Portsmouth, Va., made the presentation in front of the Naval Hospital located aboard Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas.
During the ceremony, Cullison spoke about the bond that Navy Medicine, particularly Navy corpsmen, share with Marines.
“When we serve with the Marines and the Marines are with us, it’s a relationship that you can find nowhere else. The acceptance between these two groups is like no other,” emphasized Cullison. “The responsibility that we put on our young corpsmen in battle to perform and to save lives is incredible.”
Clarifying that point, Cullison compared the controlled environment that he and other surgeons work in with the help of many others.
“Young corpsmen who go to Field Medical Service School - usually straight out of high school - perform to save lives in combat, just as Petty Officer Rubio did, and they are amazing!” he said.
Representing the Commanding General, 1st Marine Division, Marine Maj. Gen. R. F. Natonski and Command Master Chief Kelvin Carter hand-carried the award to Texas from Camp Pendleton, Calif., and assisted Cullison with the presentation. He also brought a personal message with him for Rubio.
“I talked to all the Marines and Sailors in Iraq before I left, and those back in Camp Pendleton, and they want me to tell you, ‘good job, and outstanding job!’ They are damned proud of you," he said. "Please continue what you have done for our great nation, the Marine Corps and Navy team, and also for the Hospital Corps community.”
Rubio had already earned the Purple Heart for wounds sustained in the Jan. 1, 2005, engagement while serving with 4th Platoon, Small Craft Company, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, U.S. Marine Forces Central Command.
The citation accompanying his Silver Star Medal detailed how a well-emplaced and determined enemy ambushed Rubio and members of his team along the Euphrates River in a complex attack. As Rubio and an assault element swept through the ambush site, insurgents detonated an improvised explosive device. Rocket-propelled grenades and machine gun and small-arms fire followed immediately after the explosion, wounding three Marines.
Realizing the severity of the Marines’ wounds, and bleeding profusely from his own, Rubio low-crawled across open terrain, exposing himself to enemy fire to provide triage. Simultaneously taking care of three urgent surgical casualties, Rubio coached his fellow Marines who were assisting other casualties as incoming enemy fire intensified.
After stabilizing the wounded for casualty evacuation, Rubio directed the platoon to provide covering fire as he and several Marines began moving the casualties towards safety.
Without regard for his own life, he once again exposed himself to the heavy and accurate enemy fire, moving the Marines from the ambush site to the shoreline.
Rubio’s Silver Star Medal elevates him to a distinctively exceptional category of valor among Navy corpsmen since the commencement of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and OIF. Only two others have been awarded the Silver Star, none have received the Medal of Honor, and only one hero has been presented the Navy Cross.
Rubio does not consider himself a hero, though.
While addressing the audience, he revealed who he believes are the true heroes, mentioning his two sons by name and that of the mortally wounded Marine Lance Cpl. who shielded Rubio from 90 percent of the IED's shrapnel during the engagement.
“When people ask me what it is like to be looked upon as a hero, I don’t see myself as such, because Joshua and Mathew and every son and daughter who’s out there and who has family members in Iraq, they’re the heroes,” he acknowledged while fighting back emotion. “They’re the ones who sacrifice their fathers and their mothers. That takes honor, courage and bravery to go home every night and pray that their fathers and mothers come home safe.
"And Brian Parrillo, this is for you, brother," he said. "Thank you for bringing me home.”
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Joliet graduate honored for his heroism in Iraq
U.S. Army Staff Sgt James J. Johnson called last week while he was home on leave in Joliet visiting his parents, family and friends after serving in Iraq.
Johnson comes from a long line of military men. His dad, George Johnson, served in the Air Force in Vietnam; his grandfather, the late James Cleary, served in the Navy in World War II; and his great grandfather, Peter Cleary, served in the Army in World War I.
Johnson was deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom III from 2004 to 2005. He is currently assigned to 2nd Platoon, Delta Company, 269th Armor Battalion.
While deployed in Iraq, Johnson received the Bronze Star Medal with Valor device for his exceptionally meritorious heroism and for valor and heroism during operations against hostile forces in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom III.
Johnson distinguished himself as an M1A1 tank commander with 2nd Platoon, 28th Infantry Division, D Company, 2nd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team.
On Sept. 17, 2005, the 1st Platoon was conducting route clearance in Ramadi, Iraq. An anti-tank mine disabled the rear tank. Upon the 2nd Platoon's arrival to the disabled tank, the enemy attacked with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. Johnson commanded the lead tank, in a formation consisting of a tank in the front and rear with four trucks in between for support. Within minutes of arriving at the 1st Platoon's location, the enemy engaged the 2nd Platoon with an improvised explosive device and a rocket-propelled grenade that disabled the company commander's truck.
Without hesitation, Johnson maneuvered his tank in front of the disabled tank. The enemy then began concentrating its small arms fire towards Johnson's tank. Disregarding his personal safety, Johnson climbed out of his hatch and grabbed his equipment. Johnson and his team efficiently recovered equipment before other friendly forces could provide adequate suppressive fire against the persistent enemy force.
Johnson supervised the recovery of equipment and finished within 20 minutes. Once completed, Johnson mounted his tank and led the elements of the 2nd Platoon back to Camp Corregidor without any casualties or loss of equipment.
Johnson was honored because his display of personal courage under enemy fire and exemplary devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, Task Force Ironhawk and the United States Army.
Still, Johnson said, "I didn't do it by myself. The Death Dealers (the platoon's nickname) are like brothers, everyone helped to make sure that we all got back safely."
I must say that I agree with him. When you are stationed so long with soldiers, you develop a close-knit bond, like family. Everyone watches everyone's back. In the military, you make some of the best friends you'll ever have, friends that will always be there for you.
Johnson credits his success on the battlefield to the values his parents taught him.
"My parents instilled in me to always work hard and to do the right thing," he said.
I also had the opportunity to speak with Johnson's mom, Carol Johnson, and I have no doubt she is very proud of him and supports him in his career. She speaks highly of her son, her husband and Johnson's grandfather and great-grandfather, who all have served our country. I'd like to thank his mom personally for putting me in touch with her son for this interview.
Johnson will be reassigned to Fort Knox, Ky., in October and will attend Drill Sergeant Academy. Once he completes the training, he will become a drill sergeant instructor to train younger soldiers entering the armed forces.
I have no doubt that these soldiers will get the best training needed to protect our country.
The Herald News would like to thank and honor an outstanding soldier, Staff Sgt. Johnson for defending our country and wishes him success in reaching his future career goals.
- If you know a soldier who has been deployed or is currently stationed state-side and would like to share his or her experience in the armed forces, contact Jean Edwards, staff writer, at jedwards@scn1.com or call (815) 729-6049.
Biography
• Staff Sgt. James J. Johnson
• Branch: U.S. Army
• Service: He is stationed at Fort Benning, Ga. Johnson has been on assignments in Iraq, Bosnia, Korea and Germany. He has served 10 years active duty and recently reenlisted for an additional 10 years. Johnson plans to make the Army his career.
• School: 1995 graduate of Joliet Central High School. While in junior high, he was a newspaper carrier for The Herald News. He joined the Army and went to boot camp at Fort Knox, Ky., in September 1995.
• Family: Johnson is married to Jessica and is the father of three children, Tyler 12, Hannah, 6, and Nathan, 1. He is the son of George and Carol Johnson. He has five sisters — Brandy, 30; Dawn, 27; Kelly, 25; Katie, 23; and Sarah, 18 — and two brothers —Christopher, 22, who is serving in the U.S Navy; and Stephen, 20.
06/15/06
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BRONZE STAR WITH VALOR NARRATlVE MAJOR KELLY MURRAY
For exemplary courage under fire while serving in support of OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM during a highly coordinated enemy attack by paramilitary forces using an incendiary device, Rocket Propelled Grenade launchers and small arms fire on her convoy. Major (Doctor) Murray, Regimental Surgeon and Convoy Commander, was traveling to downtown Baghdad to meet with Iraqi representatives of the Ministry of Health to discuss civil medical issues concerning the 2d Armored Cavalry's Area of Operations. Departing at 0900 hours from the Regimental Tactical Operations Center and joined by LT Stillwell driving the lead escort vehicle and Doctor Mustafa Mohammed, Regimental Medical Advisor, this trip took the convoy through the Mustansiriyah University area, a part of East Baghdad that had been previously a quiet and secure area that was reported to be pro-Coalition. Traffic was moving along at approximately 15 miles per hour and was relatively dense, with civilian cars, light trucks and cargo trucks in every lane of the six-lane road. As the convoy was moving just outside of the University area and into a slightly more open area near a gas station and other small businesses, a young Iraqi male sprinted across the opposite road and shrub covered median and threw an incendiary device into the lead vehicle. Upon that device's explosion at MB914440, Lieutenant Stillwell somehow halted the vehicle and as he fell out of the vehicle, his HMMWV was struck by a Rocket Propelled Grenade Launcher and exploded in a ball of fire. Major Murray directed Sergeant Kirk to reverse quickly and get their vehicle out of the intersection and kill zone where the lead HMMWV was now burning intensely. Had she not ordered her vehicle out of the kill zone, the enemy, who stockpiled seven other Grenade Launchers at the launching point in order to destroy her vehicle and up to six additional vehicles, would have certainly attacked her vehicle as well. As her vehicle halted outside of view of the enemy element that fired the grenade, Major Murray saw a badly burned and stunned Stilwell exit the vehicle and stagger back toward her vehicle, collapsing on the median. She immediately exited the vehicle and simultaneously provided security by aiming her MI6 rifle toward the attack area with her left hand while tending to Lieutenant Stillwell and checking him for shrapnel wounds with her right hand. After stabilizing her patient and loading him into her HMMWV, she ran up to the burning HMMWV to join Sergeant Kirk in searching for the missing Doctor Mustafa. Even though she was moving directly into danger, she risked her life to find and assist Doctor Mustafa. Using her weapon and verbal commands to warn off approaching members of an extremely hostile crowd that was later determined to be chanting anti-American slogans, Major Murray and Sergeant Kirk continued to search the burning vehicle for the second member of the team. At that point neither Major Murray nor Sergeant Kirk knew that Doctor Mustafa had heard the anti-American crowd chanting and decided to self-evacuate himself to medical care to prevent the crowd from killing him while they were treating him. After searching under and looking into the intensely burning HMMWV, Major Murray returned to Lieutenant Stillwell to continue care. Believing that Doctor Mustafa could still be in or near the burning vehicle, Major Murray and Sergeant Kirk again ran forward to search for the doctor and for ways to extract him from the intensely burning fire. At that point she and Sergeant Kirk became aware of small arms fire being directed at them from another attacking element on the near side of the road. But they continued to search the area until it became clear that there could be no survivor left in the vehicle. Returning to a growing, verbally hostile crowd that was approaching the vehicle, she directed Sergeant Kirk in navigating his vehicle out of the area and to a Level II medical treatment facility where medical personnel where able to further stabilize the burns and minimize the potential for catastrophic loss of limb to Lieutenant Stillwell. Major (Doctor) Murray's situational awareness and level headedness helped avert certain attack by waiting ambushers as well as prevented any loss of life or limbs in a clearly well-planned and executed enemy attack with three separate attacking elements. Major Murray's selfless service, courage and valor in risking her life to help fallen comrades under fire were above and beyond the call of duty and reflect the highest Cavalry traditions.
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Military police unit honored for heroism in Iraq Wsmv.com
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) -- (May 13, 2004) A military police battalion was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation on Wednesday for extraordinary heroism in Iraq, receiving it for the second time in unit history.
The award Wednesday for the 716th Military Police Company was especially gratifying to the soldiers because it contrasts news out of Iraq about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. military police officers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
"I think you should take this story and put it right over top of the other one," said Capt. Terri Dorn, commander of the 194th Military Police Company within the battalion.
"There are so many good things that the military police do, so many good things that these soldiers have done and it's kind of sad to have an individual incident happen and it just kind of clouds over all the good things that we've been doing," said Dorn, 32, of Green Bay, Wis.
The 716th Military Police Battalion is the only one in Army military police corps history to receive the award, which honors actions that set it apart from others in the same war, said battalion commander Lt. Col. Ashton Hayes.
The 716th first received the Presidential Unit Citation for its defense of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, Vietnam, in 1968.
The latest award is for its work in southern Iraq while attached to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force for major combat. It provided security to the Marines, detained prisoners of war and conducted convoy operations. Its force of 1,200 later moved into seven Iraqi cities to rebuild police operations and rebuild infrastructure.
"You once again stood up and held your heads high. The 716th knew what it was supposed to do in another one of our nation's wars to earn yourselves a Presidential Unit Citation, the highest award the government has to give," said Marine Col. John Sweeney.
"There's no doubt here the every soldier here earned that, and we are thankful for that."
Sweeney, chief of staff of the 1st Force Service Support Group, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, spoke at the ceremony Wednesday where the award was presented. The 716th was the largest military police battalion in Iraq for major combat.
Its partnership with the Marines is believed to be the first time an Army military police battalion was attached to a Marine unit during combat operations, Hayes said.
After the Marines returned home, the 716th supported a coalition of Polish and Spanish armies in southern Iraq.
On Oct. 17, 716th battalion commander Lt. Col. Kim S. Orlando was killed by hostile fire in Karbala. Hayes was flown to Iraq from Fort Riley, Kan., to take command of the 716th.
Combined, the battalion was awarded 27 Purple Hearts to those injured in combat -- including four awarded posthumously to those killed.
The unit's history dates to World War II when it helped guard troops and equipment transporting in and out of Jersey City, N.J. Since Vietnam, it has deployed to Grenada, Panama, Kosovo, and Saudi Arabia for the 1991 Persian Gulf War. It is the most decorated military police battalion in the Army.
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The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, March 3, 1863, has awarded in the name of Congress the Medal of Honor to
Sergeant First Class Paul R. Smith United States Army
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty:
Sergeant First Class Paul R. Smith distinguished himself by acts of gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with an armed enemy near Baghdad International Airport, Baghdad, Iraq on 4 April 2003.
On that day, Sergeant First Class Smith was engaged in the construction of a prisoner of war holding area when his Task Force was violently attacked by a company-sized enemy force. Realizing the vulnerability of over 100 fellow soldiers, Sergeant First Class Smith quickly organized a hasty defense consisting of two platoons of soldiers, one Bradley Fighting Vehicle and three armored personnel carriers.
As the fight developed, Sergeant First Class Smith braved hostile enemy fire to personally engage the enemy with hand grenades and anti-tank weapons, and organized the evacuation of three wounded soldiers from an armored personnel carrier struck by a rocket propelled grenade and a 60mm mortar round.
Fearing the enemy would overrun their defenses, Sergeant First Class Smith moved under withering enemy fire to man a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on a damaged armored personnel carrier.
In total disregard for his own life, he maintained his exposed position in order to engage the attacking enemy force. During this action, he was mortally wounded. His courageous actions helped defeat the enemy attack, and resulted in as many as 50 enemy soldiers killed, while allowing the safe withdrawal of numerous wounded soldiers. Sergeant First Class Smith’s extraordinary heroism and uncommon valor are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, the Third Infantry Division “Rock of the Marne,” and the United States Army.
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Marine receives Navy Cross for heroism in Iraq
A sergeant from Camp Pendleton, Calif., received the Navy Department’s second highest award for his actions during last year’s invasion of Iraq.
Navy Secretary Gordon England presented the Navy Cross to Sgt. Marco A. Martinez, 22, with 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, at a Monday afternoon ceremony at Camp Pendleton, according to a press release.
Martinez is one of a handful of service members since the Vietnam War to receive the medal, second only to the Medal of Honor.
Three other Marines from the same Regiment also received Silver Stars at the ceremony.
Staff Sgt. Adam R. Sikes, Cpl. Timothy C. Tardif and Gunnery Sgt. Jeffrey E. Bohr, Jr., each received the Silver Star, the Navy Department’s third-highest award. Bohr’s wife, Lori, accepted the award on behalf of her husband, who was killed April 10, 2003, in Iraq.
“These brave Marines did good things without notice and without the acclaim of crowds,” the press release quoted England as saying. “But they got the acclaim of their fellow Marines.”.
Martinez, Sikes and Tardif were recognized for their actions during an April 12, 2003, ambush of 1st Platoon, Golf Company, 2/5, at the town of Tarmiya, about 20 miles north of Baghdad.
The platoon was moving north to take on Iraqi Fedayeen fighters in Tikrit when it was ambushed.
Martinez’s squad leader was wounded in the attack and Martinez, then a corporal, took over and led an assault through a tree line where the ambush began, according to his award citation. While the squad received heavy fire from a nearby building, Martinez launched a captured enemy rocket-propelled grenade into the building, silencing the fire long enough for a wounded Marine to be evacuated from the area. Martinez then “single-handedly” assaulted the building and killed four enemy soldiers using his rifle and a grenade, the citation said.
Silver stars
Sikes, pinned down by heavy small-arms and RPG fire in the opening moments of the ambush, rallied two squads for a counter attack, then charged alone across 70 meters of fire-swept ground to close in and destroy an enemy strongpoint, his citation states. He then climbed to the roof of a three-story building and sent 60mm mortar rounds onto nearby Iraqi positions.
Tardif, who also was pinned down by Iraqi fire, charged across a road under intense small-arms and RPG fire, and was wounded by shrapnel from a grenade during the close-quarters battle that followed. Despite being wounded, Tardif refused to be evacuated and led his squad in an assault on an enemy-held compound, his citation said. After securing the compound, Tardif collapsed from his wounds.
Bohr was honored posthumously for his actions in a separate firefight while serving as the company gunnery sergeant for Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. He had volunteered to accompany the company’s armored convoy in a soft-skinned Humvee during a seizing of a presidential palace in Baghdad to ensure the convoy was resupplied quickly, his citation said. While moving through the narrow streets of Baghdad, the convoy came under intense fire and Bohr was killed while trying to get a medical evacuation vehicle to a wounded Marine.
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CEC Officer Earns Bronze Star For Heroism In Iraq
Story By: Jim Beltz, Public Affairs Officer, NAVFAC Southern Division, Last Updated: 07/09/2004
LCDR Brett Blanton was officially presented the Bronze Star with Valor Thursday, June 17, for combat heroism while temporarily assigned in Iraq.
Blanton, who is the Division Director of the Operations Support Business Line at Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Southern Division, is credited for saving the lives of five civilians when their convoy was ambushed on June 25, 2003. Blanton's vehicle received sustained incoming fire and was hit by a grenade. He is credited with demonstrating uncommon valor, selflessness and proficiency by escorting four unarmed civilians to safety. At great risk to himself, he then returned into the damaged vehicle to free a fifth trapped civilian.
"I was concerned about the safety of the people who were under my supervision," said Blanton. "It (heroism) was something I never expected or wanted to do. I would have been devastated if they had been hurt."
As a temporary duty assignment while stationed at Southern Division, Blanton was detailed to Baghdad, Iraq, from Feb. 28 to July 31, 2003, to be the Operations Officer for the Coalition Provisional Authority. He has been credited as the single driving force behind the planning and execution of the reconstruction effort in Baghdad, managing more than $250 million in projects and aid throughout the city. Also, he planned, organized and conducted more than 280 scout, reconnaissance and convoy missions into hostile or uncertain sectors of Baghdad during this six-month deployment.
"We went into Iraq thinking we'd restore the country to where it was before the war," Blanton said during the ceremony. "Once there, we learned the country was dysfunctional before the war. But I'm convinced that years from now, Iraq will be the bastion of the Middle East, the Garden of Eden. Eventually, I think tourism will be Iraq's No. 2 industry."
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She Lost A Hand; Would Sacrifice More
Gravely Injured In Iraq, This Hero Still Has More To Give
NEW YORK, April 12, 2006
Quote
"I don't think that you can sacrifice enough for the freedoms of America."
----Sgt. Juanita Wilson
(CBS) Sgt. Juanita Wilson was on patrol outside Baghdad when a roadside bomb exploded beneath her vehicle.
"I remained calm, I recalled trying to help my driver, and then I started to feel some tingling on my own body, and I looked down, and of course my hand was gone," she said. But less than two years later, she is proving her commitment to her country once again. That kind extraordinary patriotism makes her the subject of our American Hero series.
CBS News correspondent Joie Chen reported Wilson's story for The Early Show. She says Wilson has learned to function with her prosthetic left hand and is back at work at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
It's the same hospital where Wilson did her own recovery and rehabilitation. She has a Purple Heart for her bravery, and certainly no one would blame her for wanting to stay home with her husband and their 7-year-old daughter.
But Wilson was determined to return to the Army Reserves. "Many may say that I've sacrificed quite a bit. I don't really look at it that way. I don't think I've sacrificed enough," she told Chen. "I don't think that you can sacrifice enough for the freedoms of America."
Wilson's commitment to her country runs in the family. She hopes her daughter will join the military one day — and her husband already has. Fourteen months after his wife lost her hand in Iraq, Charles Wilson joined the Army. He told Chen he was inspired to do it by the young amputees he saw while his wife was in the hospital. "I do it for my country. I love my country," he said. "I'm a fit guy. I know I can get the job done. So I took the best job that I could take as being an infantryman. Being on the front line, getting the job done."
Charles Wilson is now a private in the third ID, the infantry division. His unit is known as Bang Bang" and it's almost a certainty that they will see combat. As for Juanita Wilson, she doesn't know yet if her reserve unit will be called back to serve in Iraq, but she says if and when it is, she will be ready.
©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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I could go on, but I think you all get my point. These stories are hardly one-in-a-million. G-d bless them all and bring them home safely.
Elliot paraclete answered on 07/14/06:If you never hear about it, where did you get the articles? What you are saying is the main stream media don't put it on the front page, but perhaps they learned after making heroes out of some americans at the beginning of the war only to find they got it wrong | | Question/Answer | | Fritzella asked on 07/13/06 - Middle-East Slipping into All Our War Is this a good thing?
Fritzie paraclete answered on 07/14/06:Is any war a good thing?
There is no doubt the Palistinians and Hezbollah need to adjust their attitude towards the existence of Israel but it is pointless for there to be a war. There can only be one outcome in such a war and that is wholesale destruction and misery, particularly for the Palistinians. I think you have to blame the Iranians for this escalation, their rhetoric has emboldened the Palistinians by giving them false hope that they have a strong ally, while in fact they are just pawns of a radical Islamic regime. The Iranians don't face the result of their financing of Islamic terrorism in the middle east while the Palistinians are the brunt of Israeli fury | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 07/12/06 - 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over' ...
Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'
January 17, 2001 | Issue 37•01
WASHINGTON, DC–Mere days from assuming the presidency and closing the door on eight years of Bill Clinton, president-elect George W. Bush assured the nation in a televised address Tuesday that "our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over."
President-elect Bush vows that "together, we can put the triumphs of the recent past behind us."
"My fellow Americans," Bush said, "at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us."
Bush swore to do "everything in [his] power" to undo the damage wrought by Clinton's two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.
During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.
"You better believe we're going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration," said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. "Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?"
On the economic side, Bush vowed to bring back economic stagnation by implementing substantial tax cuts, which would lead to a recession, which would necessitate a tax hike, which would lead to a drop in consumer spending, which would lead to layoffs, which would deepen the recession even further.
Wall Street responded strongly to the Bush speech, with the Dow Jones industrial fluctuating wildly before closing at an 18-month low. The NASDAQ composite index, rattled by a gloomy outlook for tech stocks in 2001, also fell sharply, losing 4.4 percent of its total value between 3 p.m. and the closing bell.
Asked for comment about the cooling technology sector, Bush said: "That's hardly my area of expertise."
Turning to the subject of the environment, Bush said he will do whatever it takes to undo the tremendous damage not done by the Clinton Administration to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He assured citizens that he will follow through on his campaign promise to open the 1.5 million acre refuge's coastal plain to oil drilling. As a sign of his commitment to bringing about a change in the environment, he pointed to his choice of Gale Norton for Secretary of the Interior. Norton, Bush noted, has "extensive experience" fighting environmental causes, working as a lobbyist for lead-paint manufacturers and as an attorney for loggers and miners, in addition to suing the EPA to overturn clean-air standards.
Bush had equally high praise for Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft, whom he praised as "a tireless champion in the battle to protect a woman's right to give birth."
"Soon, with John Ashcroft's help, we will move out of the Dark Ages and into a more enlightened time when a woman will be free to think long and hard before trying to fight her way past throngs of protesters blocking her entrance to an abortion clinic," Bush said. "We as a nation can look forward to lots and lots of babies."
Continued Bush: "John Ashcroft will be invaluable in healing the terrible wedge President Clinton drove between church and state." The speech was met with overwhelming approval from Republican leaders.
"Finally, the horrific misrule of the Democrats has been brought to a close," House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert (R-IL) told reporters. "Under Bush, we can all look forward to military aggression, deregulation of dangerous, greedy industries, and the defunding of vital domestic social-service programs upon which millions depend. Mercifully, we can now say goodbye to the awful nightmare that was Clinton's America."
"For years, I tirelessly preached the message that Clinton must be stopped," conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh said. "And yet, in 1996, the American public failed to heed my urgent warnings, re-electing Clinton despite the fact that the nation was prosperous and at peace under his regime. But now, thank God, that's all done with. Once again, we will enjoy mounting debt, jingoism, nuclear paranoia, mass deficit, and a massive military build-up."
An overwhelming 49.9 percent of Americans responded enthusiastically to the Bush speech.
"After eight years of relatively sane fiscal policy under the Democrats, we have reached a point where, just a few weeks ago, President Clinton said that the national debt could be paid off by as early as 2012," Rahway, NJ, machinist and father of three Bud Crandall said. "That's not the kind of world I want my children to grow up in."
"You have no idea what it's like to be black and enfranchised," said Marlon Hastings, one of thousands of Miami-Dade County residents whose votes were not counted in the 2000 presidential election. "George W. Bush understands the pain of enfranchisement, and ever since Election Day, he has fought tirelessly to make sure it never happens to my people again."
Bush concluded his speech on a note of healing and redemption.
"We as a people must stand united, banding together to tear this nation in two," Bush said. "Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, be there's much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation's hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent. And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it."
"The insanity is over," Bush said. "After a long, dark night of peace and stability, the sun is finally rising again over America. We look forward to a bright new dawn not seen since the glory days of my dad."
paraclete answered on 07/13/06:yes indeed | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 07/13/06 - kidnapping of IDF soldiers question on the Philosophy board :
legitimate act of war? Dark_Crow 07/12/06
Some people believe that the recent kidnapping of Israeli's, first by Hamas, and the other by the Hezbollah of Lebanon is a legitimate act of war. What say you?
Answered By Answered On
tomder55 07/13/06
I was not aware that Hezbollah was a nation at war with Israel ...let's ask SCOTUS ;they can twist the wordings of the Geneva conventions to give Geneva protections to non-state terrorist organizations as if they were signatory nation states.
or maybe the UN General Assembly can chime in and condemn Israel for their measured responses to repeated blatant acts of war on them by Hamas who as I recall are the duly elected thugs running Palestine these days .(it is of course still a debatable point that Palestine is a state ). Israel expended alot when it made the decision to disengage from Gaza. The Palistinians living in Hamasistan had a chance for a fresh start . The way I see it the Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders removed any cause for continued aggression against Israel unless they are still committed to their stated policy of Israel's destruction ...and if that is their aim then an appropriate Israeli response would resemble Dresden .
In both cases these were attacks on IDF which in a bizzare way becomes an improvement in their conduct as compared to strapping homicide belts on and blowing up pizza parlors ;or shooting scores of Qassam rockets at civilian targets inside Israel .
If one claims that it is legitimate ,one first has to admit it is an act of war ;an act that Israel certainly has an equal right to respond to if that person is being intellectually honest . Good question ...let's ask the paymasters of Hamas and Hezbollah in Tehran what they think .
paraclete answered on 07/13/06:First question: Is there a legitimate war going on? for a legitimate act of war there needs to be a legitimate war. No, what we have here is opportunism. However as Hamas is the party in "government" in Gaza the Israeli's would be right in intrepreting their actions as an act of war and responding accordingly
Second Question: If Lebanon won't act against Hezabollah is Israel entitled to invade? This is the thinking that got the US embroiled in Iraq and Israel embroiled in Lebanon some time back. Not a very good outcome for anyone.
Last Question: yours not mine. you or they will be hated anyway because you oppose what the terrorists want which is an Islamic state.
Let's face it the problems Israel and the US face are similar. They both took territory away from some improverished neighbours a while back and these people have not forgotten. They want it back, no matter how prosperous it has become in the mean time and perhaps even because it has become prosperous. In both cases these are people who don't have a great deal of respect for law | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 07/12/06 - Bush Takes a Step Back
Terror and Power: Bush Takes a Step Back
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: July 12, 2006
WASHINGTON, July 11 — From the outset, President Bush declared that the battle against Al Qaeda would be a war like no other, fought by new rules against new enemies not entitled to the old protections afforded to either prisoners of war or criminal defendants.
But the White House acknowledgment on Tuesday that a key clause of the Geneva Conventions applies to Qaeda detainees, as a recent Supreme Court ruling affirmed, is only the latest step in the gradual erosion of the administration’s aggressive legal stance.
The administration’s initial position emerged in 2002 only after a fierce internal legal debate, and it has been revised in the face of international opinion, Congressional curbs and Supreme Court rulings. Two central ideas of the war on terror — that the president could fight it exclusively on the basis of his constitutional powers and that terrorist suspects had few, if any, rights — have been modified repeatedly.
Scholars debated the meaning of a Defense Department memo made public on Tuesday that declared that the clause in the Geneva Conventions, Common Article 3, “applies as a matter of law to the conflict with Al Qaeda.”
Administration officials suggested that the memo only restated what was already policy — that detainees must be treated “humanely.” But what was undeniable was that the president’s executive order of Feb. 7, 2002, declared that Article 3 did not apply to Al Qaeda or to Taliban detainees, and that the newly released memo, written by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England, said it did.
After the Pentagon released the memo, the White House confirmed that it had formally withdrawn part of the 2002 order and accepted that Article 3 now applied to Qaeda detainees. That article prohibits “humiliating and degrading treatment” of prisoners and requires trials “affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.”
“This is an important course correction, and there are political ramifications to it,” said Scott L. Silliman, an expert on the law of war at Duke University. Top defense officials “never really clarified when Geneva applied and when it didn’t,” he said.
Richard H. Kohn, a military historian at the University of North Carolina, said the administration might have anticipated that it would have to adjust its policies, formed under immense pressure after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“They were going to reach as far as possible to prosecute this war, and if they were forced to scale back, they’d scale back,” Mr. Kohn said. “Almost from the beginning, the administration has had to back away and fuzz up the issues.”
If there has been a retreat, it may partly reflect a change in the perceived threat from Al Qaeda since the disorienting days after Sept. 11. As months, then years, passed without a new attack in the United States, the toughest measures seemed steadily less justifiable.
“As time passed, and no more buildings were blowing up, it was no longer an emergency, and the rules had to be renegotiated,” said Dennis E. Showalter, a professor of history at Colorado College.
In retrospect, all the contradictions that have emerged in the last four years were present in embryo in the 2002 presidential order.
The order began by noting that “our recent extensive discussions” had shown that deciding how Geneva rules would apply to Qaeda prisoners “involves complex legal questions.” It said that the conventions’ protections did not apply to terror suspects, but also that “our values as a nation” nonetheless “call for us to treat detainees humanely, including those who are not legally entitled to such treatment.”
In 2003, the administration decided that Article 3 would be applied to all prisoners captured in Iraq — even non-Iraqi members of Al Qaeda. But the May 2004 revelations of abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib showed that the policy had not always been followed, and in response, the Defense Department repeatedly whittled down the list of approved interrogation techniques.
In 2004, the Justice Department reversed course as well, formally withdrawing a 2002 opinion asserting that nothing short of treatment resulting in “organ failure” was banned as torture.
In late 2005, the administration was forced to accept legislation proposed by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, to ban “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” of prisoners held by the United States anywhere in the world.
In the meantime, the Supreme Court was knocking down some of the administration’s key assertions of presidential power in the battle against terror.
In Rasul v. Bush in 2004, the court ruled that American courts had the authority to decide whether foreign terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had been rightfully detained. And on June 29, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the court rejected the administration’s rules for military commissions set up to try Guantánamo detainees, saying it had failed to seek Congressional approval and had fallen short of the standards set by law and the Geneva Conventions.
It was the Hamdan ruling that prompted Mr. England’s memo. “It is my understanding,” he wrote, that all current Defense Department rules were already in compliance with Article 3.
But Mr. England’s wording suggested that after all the policy adjustment since 2002, he was not certain everyone was operating from the same playbook: “I request that you promptly review all relevant directives, regulations, policies, practices and procedures under your purview to ensure that they comply with the standard of Common Article 3.”
Mr. England’s uncertainty was not surprising, Mr. Silliman said. Mixed messages over exactly which rules applied where, and which Geneva protections were to be honored and which ignored, were at the root of prisoner abuse scandals from Guantánamo to Iraq to Afghanistan, he said.
“It’s clear when you look at Abu Ghraib and everything else that there was a tremendous amount of confusion,” Mr. Silliman said.
Even as legal experts parsed Mr. England’s memo, confusion lingered. The American Civil Liberties Union welcomed the memo as “a first big step” toward ending “four years of lawlessness” on detainee issues. But it also noted that in testimony Tuesday, other administration officials suggested that Congress simply adopt as law the proposed military commissions in exactly the form that civil libertarians say falls far short of Article 3.
That skepticism was shared by Martin S. Lederman, a former Justice Department official now at the Georgetown University law school.
“The administration has fought tooth and nail for four years to say Common Article 3 does not apply to Al Qaeda,” Mr. Lederman said. “Having lost that fight, I’m afraid they’re now saying, ‘Never mind, we’ve been in compliance with Article 3 all along.’ ”
===
Well, well, well!
Well?
paraclete answered on 07/12/06:indeed you may say well? Bush has been wrong all along! How many times must it be said? | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 07/11/06 - Will Bush ever get real?
Another Mission ‘Accomplished’
Published: July 11, 2006
The release of the White House midsession budget review
This is proof, if anyone still needs it, that this administration is desperate for something to boast about. On Mr. Bush’s watch, triple-digit budget surpluses have turned into annual triple-digit budget deficits. There’s no information in the midsession report to alter that utterly dispiriting fact. Yes, the report is expected to project that this year’s deficit will be somewhat less gargantuan than last year’s — probably somewhere between $280 billion and $300 billion, versus a $318 billion shortfall in 2005. That’s not much to crow about.
But Mr. Bush is likely to gloat, anyway. Earlier this year, the administration conveniently projected a highly inflated deficit of $423 billion. With that as a starting point, the actual results can be spun to look as if they’re worth cheering.
The razzle-dazzle won’t end there. As he did in his remarks on Saturday, Mr. Bush is sure to use today’s event to credit tax cuts for a projected “surge” in tax revenue. The Treasury is expected to take in about $250 billion more in 2006 than in 2005, for a total take of $2.4 trillion. Devoid of context, the number looks impressive.
In fact, it is $100 billion less than the $2.5 trillion revenue estimate the administration touted when it set out in 2001 to sell its policy of never-ending tax cuts. Even with this year’s bigger haul, real revenue growth during the Bush years will be abysmal, averaging about 0.3 percent per capita, versus an average of nearly 10 percent in all previous post-World War II business cycles. That might be excusable if the recent revenue improvements could reasonably be expected to continue. They cannot. Much of the increase in tax receipts is from corporate profits, high-income investors and super high-earning executives, sources that are just as unpredictable as the financial markets to which they’re inevitably linked.
So, the revenue surge is neither a sign that the tax cuts are working nor of sustainable economic growth. A growing number of economists, most prominently from the Congressional Budget Office, point out that upsurges in revenue are also the result of growing income inequality in the United States, an observation that is consistent with mounting evidence of a rapidly widening gap between the rich and everyone else. As corporations and high- income Americans claim ever more of the economic pie, revenues rise, even if there’s no increase in overall economic growth.
If Mr. Bush looked behind his headline numbers, he, too, could see that the rich are getting richer while the rest are, at best, only holding ground [and the poorest have been losing ground for nine years!]. It would make sense to use some of the windfall revenue to enact policies and programs that tilt against growing inequality. Unfortunately, he’s flogging more tax cuts that will deepen the divide.
===
Will Bush ever get real?
paraclete answered on 07/12/06:Can leopard change his spots? You expect the impossible. do you want GWB to turn into the flimflamman, twisting with every breeze, If he did you would have even less respect for him. Tax cuts are a valid economic policy which have been proven in other places to turn deficits into surpluses, that GWB could achieve the opposite is only remarkable because he embarked upon a war and cut taxes at the same time. It's the disconnect that he cannot overcome, the inability to see that different policies are connected by fiscal outcomes. | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 07/11/06 - Feel the pride! http://www.wtv-zone.com/Mary/THISWILLMAKEYOUPROUD.HTML paraclete answered on 07/12/06:Certainly an interesting citation. If you had an army of men like that the war in Iraq would have been over long ago, but sadly such are one in a million. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 07/10/06 - The butcher of Beslan ..... ...Shamil Basayev ,was the vicitim of a 'truck bombing'. That is .....a truck full of explosives ( filled with 220 pounds of dynamite ) that he was traveling with mysteriously blew up in the village of Ekazhevo in Ingushetia . He was positively identified "through some of the fragments, including his head," Interfax reported.
Besides claiming responsibility for the Beslan massacre he also was responsible for the Dubrovka theater attack in Moscow in 2002, where over 100 were killed during the raid to free the hostages, and the Budyonnovsk hospital siege in 1995, where over 100 patients and hospital personnel were killed and many others . Winds of Change blog had a good summary of Chechnya rebels links to al Qaeda in 2004 but even though the links were clear ;the NY Slimes described the murderers of the children of Beslan as "guerrillas" and "fighters" and "armed captors" but not "terrorists." . For that they deserve a big French head-but. Although I do not think there are any more al Qaeda camps left there I am sure there is still AQ funding . Wonder if we transfered any intel from the SWIFT data mining to the Ruskies ?
paraclete answered on 07/11/06:There is nothing mysterious here the Russian Special Forces claimed the kill but the rebels said it was an accident, either way the world is rid of another monster | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 07/07/06 - What would you say if this had happened to you?
Algerian Tells of Dark Odyssey in U.S. Hands
By By CRAIG S. SMITH and SOUAD MEKHENNET
Published: July 7, 2006
ALGIERS — Two years ago, a motley collection of prisoners spent night after night repeating their telephone numbers to one another from within the dark and dirty cells where they were being held in Afghanistan. Anyone who got out, they said they agreed, would use the numbers to contact the families of the others to let them know that they were still alive.
The case of one of them, Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen who was held as part of the United States' antiterrorism rendition program, was revealed last year, and German and American officials have acknowledged that he was erroneously detained by the United States. But the tale of the other, an Algerian named Laid Saidi, has never been told before, and it carries a new set of allegations against America's secret detention program.
In May 2003, Mr. Saidi was expelled from Tanzania, where he ran a branch of Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, an international charity based in Saudi Arabia that promoted the fundamentalist Wahhabi strain of Islam and has since been shut down after being accused of financing terrorist groups. Tanzanian newspapers reported on Mr. Saidi's expulsion at the time, but nothing was known about where he went.
In a recent interview, Mr. Saidi, 43, said that after he was expelled he was handed over to American agents and flown to Afghanistan, where he was held for 16 months before being delivered to Algeria and freed without ever being charged or told why he had been imprisoned. He acknowledged that he was carrying a fake passport when he was detained, but he said he had no connection to terrorism.
Wearing a white robe and a white skullcap in his lawyer's office here, he held up two white shoes he said his captors gave him before setting him free in August 2004. The only other physical evidence he offered of his imprisonment were fading scars on his wrists that he said were from having been chained to the ceiling of a cell for five days.
"Sometimes I cry and shake when I think about this," he said in his first interview about his imprisonment. "I didn't think I would see my family again." While Mr. Saidi's allegations of torture cannot be corroborated, other elements of his story can be.
American, Tanzanian and Algerian officials have declined to comment on Mr. Saidi's allegations, but Mr. Masri said he saw Mr. Saidi in the Afghan prison where he was held. German prosecutors investigating Mr. Masri's detention now want to interview Mr. Saidi, said Martin Hofmann, a prosecutor in Munich.
In addition, a criminal investigation of the deaths in 2002 of two Afghan detainees at the American [WE DO NOT USE TORTURE!] military detention center in Bagram, north of Kabul, found that prisoners were often shackled to the ceiling by their wrists for punishment, as Mr. Saidi said he had been. Military officials, though, said the practice was stopped after the deaths.
A spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency declined to discuss Mr. Saidi's claims. "While the C.I.A. does not as a rule comment publicly on these kinds of allegations, the agency has said repeatedly that it does not condone torture," said the spokesman, Paul Gimigliano. He added that renditions, the process of moving captured terrorism suspects to third countries for interrogation, "are an antiterror tool that the United States has used for years in accordance with its laws and treaty obligations."
Mr. Saidi is one of a handful of men to publicly claim they were seized in the rendition program and then mistreated or tortured, before being released without charge or explanation. Like prisoners released from the American military detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, they represent not only a mounting political problem, but a potential legal problem for the United States and its allies that have participated in the extrajudicial abductions.
International fallout from renditions continued Wednesday when prosecutors in Milan arrested two Italian intelligence officers on allegations that they aided the C.I.A. in the 2003 kidnapping of a radical Egyptian cleric in Italy. The cleric was then sent to Egypt, where he has been imprisoned.
Mr. Saidi was seized as the United States and Saudi Arabia were cracking down on Al Haramain, which the United States subsequently declared had provided "financial and other operational support" for the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. But it is not known what, if any, specific suspicions the authorities had about Mr. Saidi.
A July 2004 German intelligence report on Al Haramain made note of Mr. Saidi's expulsion but said, "It is not yet clear whether there existed concrete assessments that this person had links to terrorism." It added that "the Tanzanian government justified their procedure with the not very credible argument that he had broken legal regulations for foreigners."
In addition to the German prosecutors, the Council of Europe, a multinational human rights watchdog, wants to interview Mr. Saidi as part of its investigation into whether any European countries have breached the European Convention on Human Rights by participating in renditions.
Mr. Saidi said he believed that his captors were Americans because they spoke English and appeared in charge at the Afghanistan prison. He said he hoped to file a lawsuit against the government later this year. "We don't know who to sue yet," said Mostefa Bouchachi, Mr. Saidi's lawyer. "We don't know who is responsible, the C.I.A. or F.B.I."
Mr. Saidi said he left Algeria in 1991 to escape the violence then engulfing the country. He studied in Yemen before moving to Kenya and then Tanzania in early 1997. He began working for Al Haramain and became director of its branch in the costal city of Tanga, a job that gave him a public profile.
He said that during that time he was using a fraudulent Tunisian passport and living under the name Ramzi ben Mizauni ben Fraj. He said he had lost his passport and bought a fake one because he was afraid of going to the Algerian Embassy while Algeria was fighting a civil war with Islamists. He denied that he had any reason to hide his identity or that Al Haramain's activities were anything but charitable.
United States intelligence officials have long suspected that Al Haramain was involved in financing terrorism, according to the report of the 9/11 Commission. Suspicion rose after the August 1998 bombings of the United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. After the Sept. 11 attacks, American and Saudi authorities alleged that some Haramain money was being diverted to terrorist groups and that the organization was infiltrated by people with links to those groups. By 2003, several Haramain branches were shut down, and the following year the Saudi authorities dissolved the charity.
It is not clear if the crackdown on Al Haramain led to Mr. Saidi's detention, but on Saturday, May 10, 2003, Tanzanian police officers surrounded his car as he left home for work, according to Mr. Saidi, his wife and press reports at the time. That night the police drove him to Dar es Salaam and put him in jail.
"I thought I might have been arrested for holding a false passport, but I didn't tell them it was fake," he said.
Three days later, he said, he was bundled into a white Land Rover and driven to the Malawi border, where he was turned over to Malawians in plain clothes who were accompanied by two middle-aged Caucasian men wearing jeans and T-shirts. They spoke English with the Malawians, Mr. Saidi said. That is when he realized that something more ominous was going on.
A Place 'Out of the World'
Shortly after the expulsion, a lawyer representing Mr. Saidi's wife filed an affidavit in the Tanzanian court saying that immigration documents showed Mr. Saidi was deported through the border between Kasumulu, Tanzania, and Malawi.
After being held for a week in a prison in the mountains of Malawi, Mr. Saidi said, a group of people arrived in a sport utility vehicle: a gray-haired Caucasian woman and five men dressed in black wearing black masks revealing only their eyes.
The Malawians blindfolded him, and his clothes were cut away, he said. He heard someone taking photographs. Then, he said, the blindfold was removed and the agents covered his eyes with cotton and tape, inserted a plug in his anus and put a disposable diaper on him before dressing him. He said they covered his ears, shackled his hands and feet and drove him to an airplane where they put him on the floor. [Nothing unusual here?]
"It was a long trip, from Saturday night to Sunday morning, " Mr. Saidi recalled. When the plane landed, he said, he was taken to what he described as a "dark prison" filled with deafening Western music. The lights were rarely turned on.
Men in black arrived, he said, and he remembers one shouting at him through an interpreter: "You are in a place that is out of the world. No one knows where you are, no one is going to defend you."
He was chained by one hand to the wall in a windowless cell and left with a bucket and a bottle in lieu of a latrine. He remained there for nearly a week, he said, and then was blindfolded and bound again and taken to another prison. "There, they put me in a room, suspended me by my arms and attached my feet to the floor," he recalled. "They cut off my clothes very fast and took off my blindfold." An older man, graying at the temples, entered the room with a young woman with shoulder-length blond hair, he said. They spoke English, which Mr. Saidi understands a little, and they interrogated him for two hours through a Moroccan translator. At last, he said, he thought he would learn why he was there, but the questioning only confounded him.
He said the interrogators focused on a telephone conversation they said he had had with his wife's family in Kenya about airplanes. But Mr. Saidi said he told them that he could not recall talking to anyone about planes.
He said the interrogators left him chained for five days without clothes or food. "They beat me and threw cold water on me, spat at me and sometimes gave me dirty water to drink," he said. "The American man told me I would die there." [TORTURE?]
He said his legs and feet became painfully swollen because he was forced to stand for so long with his wrists chained to the ceiling. After they removed him from the chains, he said, he was moved back to the "dark" prison and a doctor gave him an injection for his legs.
After one night there, he was moved to a third prison. He said the guards in this prison were Afghans, and one told him that he was outside Kabul.
There were two rows of six cells in the basement, which he described as "filthy, not even suitable for animals." Each cell had a small opening in the zinc-clad door through which the prisoners could glimpse one another as they were taken in and out of their cells. At night, they would talk.
"This is where I met Khaled el-Masri," Mr. Saidi said. A layout of the prison he sketched closely matched one drawn by Mr. Masri.
Mr. Masri had been seized in Macedonia in December 2003, and it was later revealed that he had apparently been mistaken for a terrorism suspect with a similar name. He said he was able only to glimpse Mr. Saidi a few times in Afghanistan. But he said their cells were close enough for them to talk at night.
"At the beginning of our prison time together, I was in the last cell and he was two cells away from me," Mr. Masri said by telephone from Germany. "Whenever I wanted to go to the toilet or was taken for questioning, I had to pass his door."
Mr. Masri and Mr. Saidi said they got to know other prisoners, including two Pakistani brothers from Saudi Arabia, whose phone number Mr. Masri also memorized. Using that number, The New York Times reached relatives of the brothers, Abdul al-Rahim Ghulam Rabbani and Mohammed Ahmad Ghulam Rabbani, who said they had heard from the Red Cross two years ago that the brothers were being held in Afghanistan. Pentagon documents show that two men with those names are now detainees at Guantánamo Bay.
A Dire Misunderstanding
In prison, Mr. Saidi said, he was interrogated daily, sometimes twice a day, for weeks. Eventually, he said, his interrogators produced an audiotape of the conversation in which he had allegedly talked about planes.
But Mr. Saidi said he was talking about tires, not planes, that his brother-in-law planned to sell from Kenya to Tanzania. He said he was mixing English and Arabic and used the word "tirat," making "tire" plural by adding an Arabic "at" sound. Whoever was monitoring the conversation apparently understood the word as "tayarat," Arabic for planes, Mr. Saidi said.
"When I heard it, I asked the Moroccan translator if he understood what we were saying in the recording," Mr. Saidi said. After the Moroccan explained it to the interrogators, Mr. Saidi said, he was never asked about it again.
"Why did they bring me to Afghanistan to ask such questions?" he said in the interview. "Why didn't they ask me in Tanzania? Why did they have to take me away from my family? Torture me?"
Mr. Saidi said the interrogators also accused him of hiding rockets in his house and of funneling money to Al Qaeda, allegations that he strongly denies and for which he said evidence was never produced.
While he was in prison, however, the United States Treasury Department asked the United Nations to add Al Haramain's Tanzanian branch to the list of charities alleged to have financed terrorist organizations.
In its January 2004 announcement, the department said an unnamed former director of Al Haramain in Tanzania was responsible for making preparations for the advance party that planned the 1998 embassy bombings. But the department declined to identify the former director or to comment on Mr. Saidi's case.
Mr. Saidi said interrogators asked repeatedly about the Haramain director who preceded him, a Saudi named Muammar al-Turki. But he said he was no longer in touch with him.
Mr. Saidi said the interrogations eventually stopped. In the late spring or early summer of 2004, he said, he was flown to Tunisia, apparently because his captors thought he was Tunisian. But when Arabic-speaking men boarded the plane, he said he told them he was from Algeria and that his Tunisian passport was fake.
"I didn't want to get into more trouble," he explained.
He spent 75 more days in jail, he said. In late August 2004, he again prepared to travel. His captors gave him the pair of white shoes he still has. The flight took about 10 or 12 hours, and when the plane landed, he said, he was turned over to Algerian intelligence officials. They held him for a few days, then bought him some clothes, gave him a small sum of money and drove him to a bus stop in the Algiers neighborhood of Bir Khadem.
After 16 months, Mr. Saidi was free. He was reunited with his wife and children. Mr. Masri had been released a few months before. He tried to contact Mr. Saidi at the Tanzanian phone number he had memorized, but the number was disconnected. Eventually, Mr. Saidi sent him a text message with a new number in Algeria, which Mr. Masri called.
"I know him from his voice," Mr. Masri said, "and I recognized his voice from the first phone call that we had after his release."
===
Direct evidence of the US using torture.
What would you have to say if this had happened to you?
Your son, brother, father?
Curious minds want to know!
paraclete answered on 07/10/06:Number one don't break the law.
HE HAD A FORGED PASSPORT
Number two dont actively support terrorist organisations.
HE WAS CHANNELLING FUNDS TO TERRORISTS
Number three. If you do these things
DON'T TELL ANYONE ABOUT IT. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 07/07/06 - US foils 'New York tunnel plot' US authorities say they have disrupted the early stages of a plot to attack New York City's mass transit system.
The alleged plot was discovered during routine monitoring of internet chatrooms used by extremist groups...
Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York said this was one instance "where intelligence was on top of its game and discovered the plot when it was just in the talking phase".
A number of plots targeting subways, tunnels and other New York City landmarks have come to light since the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center."
The NY Times headline tomorrow?
Bush administration secretly monitoring internet conversations
Program monitors chat rooms
The US government, without the knowledge of private American citizens, has engaged for years in a secret effort to eavesdrop on private internet conversations... paraclete answered on 07/10/06:It's great pity they didn't uncover the plot to disrupt Sydneys Mass Transit system called the cross city tunnel project, no terrorist could have done more or succeeded so completely | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 07/07/06 - Forget sanctions, show films Michael Moore is putting on his second annual Traverse City Film Festival, complete with a Salute to Iranian Cinema. As he puts it, "a sort of "Let's get to know them first this time!" effort." No word on whether there will be subtitles or if you need to brush up on your Farsi.
The choices:
Men at Work, Directed By: Mani Haghighi
Four men from Tehran are on their way to the mountains for a weekend ski trip. As they round a curve, they encounter a boulder that sits on the edge of a cliff. Together they decide that the boulder must be pushed off that cliff. And, for the next 80 minutes, that's what we see them try to do in this funny, poignant allegory by the acclaimed Iranian director Mani Haghighi. No matter what they try to do, the rock won't budge. And neither will they. This is a great, small film that has many big things to say. We are proud to welcome from Tehran the director, Mani Haghighi, as part of our Salute to Iranian Cinema. Mr. Haghighi will speak after the film. Not Rated
President Mir Qanbar, Directed By: Mohammed Shirvani
A poor, 74-year-old man by the name of Mir Qanbar decides that anyone can grow up to be president of Iran. So he declares his candidacy and sets off on the campaign trail with his mule and his loyal friend, Seifollah, to the many remote, poverty-stricken villages of his district. He has a cart and a bicycle and a megaphone. He promises everyone he meets that he will clean up the government and represent the little guy. Director Mohammed Shirvani has brilliantly captured the quiet dignity and determination of Mir Qanbar in this exquisite documentary about a man to whom democracy is not just a word or a promise. Not Rated
And my personal choice...
Iron Island, Directed By: Mohammad Rasoulof
In this astonishing film directed by Mohammad Rasoulof, a huge abandoned oil tanker sits a few miles off the coast of Iran. Captain Nemat, played by Ali Nasirian, establishes his own society on the ship and others join him as they create a floating city. With their own money, power, clothing factory, and jobs, they are self sufficient, but Nemat rules with an iron fist. His absolute power is tested when two young lovers, under increasing pressure from outside influences, defy his authority. This allegory for contemporary Iranian society is funny one moment and brutal the next. Part of our Salute to Iranian Cinema. Not Rated
Personally I think Men at Work might be pretty funny, President Mir Qanbar may be moving, but Iron Island may not have the desired effect.
To make this work Iran needs to reciprocate, any suggestions on American films to show in Iran? Oh, that's right, Iran has banned American films.paraclete answered on 07/10/06:Michael Moore's Movies are sure to be a great hit in Iran, proving what Iranians already know | | Question/Answer | | .Choux. asked on 07/06/06 - Disaster Everywhere One Looks, Thanks Bush Crime Family! "From deteriorating security in Afghanistan and Somalia to mayhem in the Middle East, confrontation with Iran and eroding relations with Russia, the White House suddenly sees crisis in every direction.
North Korea's long-range missile test Tuesday, although unsuccessful, was another reminder of the bleak foreign policy landscape that faces President Bush even outside of Iraq. Few foreign policy experts foresee the reclusive Stalinist state giving up the nuclear weapons it appears to have acquired, making it another in a long list of world problems that threaten to cloud the closing years of the Bush administration, according to foreign policy experts in both parties.
"I am hard-pressed to think of any other moment in modern times where there have been so many challenges facing this country simultaneously," said Richard N. Haass, a **former senior Bush administration official** who heads the Council on Foreign Relations. "The danger is that Mr. Bush will hand over a White House to a successor that will face a far messier world, with far fewer resources left to cope with it."
Washington Post dot com.
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What a mess Bush has created in foreign affairs!
Let's see, perhaps things are better at home...
illegal immigration, they are flooding over our southern border
federal deficit, Oy!
government spending, plan D Medicare, what a fiasco!
Price of gasoline, sky high!
pollution of all kinds, *cough*
approval of the president, about 30%
on and on and on.... paraclete answered on 07/07/06:Too much doom and gloom, you give George too much power by saying that he has caused all the problems. The problems are caused by the neglect of others over decades, George just inherited the mess of his predecessors and wasn't equal to the task of finding instant solutions. Yes, he has made some situations worse by invading Iraq, bullying certain nations like N. Korea and Iran but what's a boy to do when he tries to do a man's job | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 07/05/06 - Superman seeking truth justice and all that stuff
best line from 'Kill Bill vol 2 :
An essential characteristic of the superhero mythology is, there's the superhero, and there's the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When he wakes up in the morning, he's Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic that Superman stands alone. Superman did not become Superman, Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S", that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears, the glasses, the business suit, that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He's weak, he's unsure of himself... he's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race.
You know more about this stuff than I do . Is there another superhero who is born a superhero and like superman wears the guise of a normal 9-5 person ?
paraclete answered on 07/06/06:Yes Jesus Christ fits the definition but we should not make comparisons between the hero's of fiction and real people.
Superman arose in the days when the america's needed a counter to the myth of the nazi superman, thus the never ending battle for the american way, whatever that is. Certainly not the american way of today.
America is unique in spawning the cult of the superhero, no other society has needed such superhuman beings to populate it's popular fiction and the twentieth century wasn't the start, figures from the past found their way their too, Davy Crocket, Zorro, Billy the Kid, Buffalo Bill, etc, etc, each one appealing to a generation looking for freedom from oppression of one sort or another. The character of the dark knight with something to hide appeals. | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 07/03/06 - I'd like your opibnions - without foul language - on this piece: July 1 - 2, 2006
What's to Stop Him?
Bush's Assaults on Freedom
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
On June 29 the US Supreme Court in a 5-3 decision ruled that President Bush's effort to railroad tortured Guantanamo Bay detainees in kangaroo courts "violates both US law and the Geneva Conventions."
Better late than never, but it sure took a long time for the checks and balances to call a halt to the illegal and unconstitutional behavior of the executive.
The Legal Times quotes David Remes, a partner in the law firm of Covington & Burling: "At the broadest level, the Court has rejected the basic legal theory of the Bush administration since 9/11--that the president has the inherent power to do whatever he wants in the name of fighting terrorism without accountability to Congress or the courts."
Perhaps the Court's ruling has more far reaching implications. In finding Bush in violation of the Geneva Conventions, the ruling may have created a prima facie case for charges to be filed against Bush as a war criminal.
Many readers have concluded that Bush assumed the war criminal's mantle when he illegally invaded Iraq under false pretenses. The US itself established the Nuremberg standard that it is a war crime to launch a war of aggression. This was the charge that the chief US prosecutor brought against German leaders at the Nuremberg trials.
The importance of the Supreme Court's decision, however, is that a legal decision by America's highest court has ruled Bush to be in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
There are many reasons to impeach Bush. His flagrant disregard for international law, US civil liberties, the separation of powers, public opinion and human rights associate Bush with the worst tyrants of the 20th century. It is true that Bush has not yet been able to subvert all the institutions that constrain his executive power, but he and his band of Federalist Society lawyers have been working around the clock to eliminate the constraints that the US Constitution and international law place on executive power.
Republicans are "outraged" that "liberal judges" have prevented Bush from "protecting us from terrorists." In the US Senate, Majority Leader Bill Frist said that Republicans will propose legislation to enable Bush to get around the Supreme Court's decision. Senator Arlen Spector (R, PA) already had a bill ready. What sense does it make to talk about "liberal opposition" when liberal Republicans like Spector are falling all over themselves to kow-tow to Bush.
Americans are going to have to decide which is the greater threat: terrorists or the Republican Party's determination to shred American civil liberties and the separation of powers in the name of executive power and the "war on terror."
The rest of the world has already reached a decision. A Harris Poll recently conducted for the Financial Times found that the populations of our European allies--Britain, France, Italy and Spain--view the United States as the greatest threat to global stability.
A Pew Foundation survey released the same week found that 60 percent of the British believe that Bush has made the world less safe and that 79 percent of the Spanish oppose Bush's war on terror.
Republicans and conservatives equate civil liberties with homosexual marriage, abortion, racial quotas, flag burning, banning of school prayer, and crime resulting from a lax punishment of criminals. This is partly the fault of the ACLU and leftwingers, who go to extremes to make a point. But it is also the fault of conservatives, who believe that their government is incapable of evil deeds.
In their dangerous and ill-founded belief, conservatives are in total opposition to the Founding Fathers, who went to the trouble of writing the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in order to protect us from our government. Most conservatives believe that they do not need constitutional protections, because they "are not doing anything wrong." Conservatives have come to this absurd conclusion despite the Republicans' decision to sell out the Bill of Rights for the sake of temporary power.
A number of important books have recently been published that decry America's decaying virtue. In Lawless World, the distinguished British jurist, Philippe Sands, documents the destruction by George Bush and Tony Blair of the system of international law put in place by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. In The Peace of Illusions, Christopher Layne documents the American drive for global hegemony that threatens the world with war and destruction. Americans are enjoying a sense of power with little appreciation of where it is leading them.
Congress has collapsed in the face of Bush's refusal to abide by statutory law and his "signing statements" by which Bush asserts his independence of US law. Bush has done what he can to turn the Supreme Court into a rubber stamp of his unaccountable power by placing John Roberts and Samual Alito on the bench. Though much diminished by these appointments, the Court found the strength to rise up in opposition to Bush's budding tyranny.
Amazingly, on the very same day in England, where our individual rights originated, the High Court struck down Tony Blair's "anti-terrorism" laws as illegal breaches of the human rights of suspects. As with the Bush regime, the Blair regime tried to justify its illegality on the grounds of "protecting the public," but a far larger percentage of the British population than the American understands that the erosion of civil liberty is a greater threat to their safety than terrorists.
Thus, in the two lands most associated with civil liberties, courts have struck down the tyrannical acts of the corrupt executive. Perhaps the fact that courts have reaffirmed the rule of law will give hope and renewed strength to the friends of liberty to withstand the assaults on freedom that are the hallmarks of the Bush and Blair regimes. On the other hand the two tyrants might ignore the courts as they have statutory law.
What's to stop them?
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com
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Reasoned opinions please. No foul language!
paraclete answered on 07/04/06:dobominate this, us kangaroos don't hold courts. | | Question/Answer | | .Choux. asked on 07/03/06 - Religion a factor in Presidential Election 2008 From Bloomberg dot com: July 3 (Bloomberg) -- Religion hasn't been an issue in American presidential politics since 1960. That may change in 2008 if Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, a Mormon, remains a leading candidate for the Republican nomination.
More than a third of registered voters -- 35 percent -- say they wouldn't vote for a Mormon for president, the latest Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll finds. That's considerably more than say they wouldn't vote for a Catholic, Jew or evangelical Christian. Only a Muslim gets a higher negative response.
Among all respondents, 37 percent say they wouldn't vote for a Mormon. More than two in five Democrats say they wouldn't do so, while about a third of both Republicans and independents say they wouldn't. Females are slightly more negative toward a Mormon candidate than males.
``It's a sign that this is going to be a factor in Romney's campaign,'' said Scott Rasmussen, an independent pollster and president of Rasmussen Research in Ocean Grove, New Jersey.
By comparison, 22 percent of registered voters say they wouldn't support an evangelical Christian, 14 percent wouldn't back a Jewish candidate, and 9 percent say no to a Catholic. Fifty-three percent say they wouldn't vote for a Muslim."
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Comments? paraclete answered on 07/04/06:sounds very negative we won't vote for this and we won't vote for that, it leaves you in the position of getting someone who stands for nothing | | Question/Answer | | captainoutrageous asked on 07/04/06 - Have you seen this? http://www.netscape.com/viewstory/2006/07/02/video-proof-that-9-11-didnt-happen-as-we-think-it-did/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.google.com%2Fvideoplay%3Fdocid%3D-8260059923762628848%26q%3D9%252F11&frame=true paraclete answered on 07/04/06:don't exactly know what it is you are trying to prove here but those are a whole lot of circular references.
As to 9/11 do you mean I sat up all night to watch fiction. It was a a good attempt at fiction, it fooled me | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 07/02/06 - Bush's Anti-Media Attack seen openly for what it is ....
Bush's present attack on the NYT is patently politically motivated to please the Repuiblican right and give a little solace to his own Republican critics in the run-up to mid term elections.
If he wants to attack the NYT for running a story about Bush & Co. tracking the bank accounts of his fellow Americans, then he is free to do so - this is the Land of the Free, and even the president gets freedom of speech, right?
But why os why does he absolve the LA Times and the Wall Street Journal - both Republican conservative rags - from any culpability when they ran the same story? The LA Times was just a couple of hours away from reaching its independent decision to run the story - which it did run - and the NYT pipped it at the post, hitting the streets first.
Does this show Bush's desperation, his favouritism, his need to attack any liberal media for reporting the truth?
Where is his sense of moral outrage at the LAT and the WSJ?
Curious minds want to know.
paraclete answered on 07/03/06:curious minds want to know why you hate George Bush? | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 07/02/06 - Redistricting for racial reasons ... ...was apparently the one exception that the Supreme Court determined was a violation that needed correcting in their decision about Texas this week.The court did not care when or how often a state is gerrymandered so long as it was not done to dilute a minorites representation .
The Supremes ruled in' League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry and three other consolidated cases that the "redrawing of District 23's lines amounts to vote dilution violative" of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act . A panel of judges in Texas has set a deadline for the redrawing of the district to conform to the Supreme's edict.
But ,let's say that a district is already representitive of the minority population .Does it necessarily have a right to guarantee that the person it sends to Congress is of that minorty ? Logically you would think not .
But that is just the argument being forwarded in the NY 11th Congressional District . White City Councilman David Yassky is running to replace black Congressman Major Owens, who is retiring at the end of this year. The seat has a roughly 60 percent black population, and 3 other candidates, all black, have gotten into this year’s race; Chris Owens, son of the retiring Congressman, City Councilwoman Yvette Clarke and State Senator Carl Andrews.Yassky is just as liberal as Owens, but the color of his skin has prompted his three primary opponents and their supporters to accuse of him of attempting to reduce black representation in Congress. Owens and his fellow black officials believe they are entitled to keep the district's representation black, and they have no problem using Yassky's skin color as an issue in the primary contest.
Black City Councilman Al Vann organized a press conference on the steps of City Hall demanding that Yassky leave the race. Vann says that politics should not be based on race, but in this case he was more than happy to use race as the sole reason to keep Yassky off the ballot. Vann even implied that while African-American voters are willing to vote for candidates of any race, so long as they are qualified, white voters would likely vote in lockstep for Yassky because he shared the same melanin levels as they do.
The district has its roots in the Voting Rights Act, which eliminated racial barriers to elected representation(and allowed for certain racial gerrymandering to be acceptable so long as it favored minority representation), and was held by Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman ever elected to Congress. In light of all this history, said Vann, Yassky should leave the race and leave black voters to decide for themselves.
There are black community leaders who are supporting Yassky, as well as plenty of whites who have lined up behind Owens and Clarke. None of this seems to matter to Yassky’s critics.
paraclete answered on 07/02/06:have you never noticed that the racist card is often played by those who should play it the least. If a white man discriminates it's racism, if a black man discriminates it's affirmative action or lifting a minority. Whose racist the one who gave the black man a vote or the one who abuses the privilege. One happened to one vote, one value and who carries if black representation is diluted, after all white representation has been diluted. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 07/01/06 - A pattern of treason? Incident is only latest for terrorist-tipping Times
By Michelle Malkin
The New York Times (proudly publishing all the secrets unfit to spill since 9/11) and their reckless anonymous sources (come out, come out, you cowards) tipped off terrorists to America's efforts to track their financial activities.
Guess what? It isn't the first time blabbermouth journalists have jeopardized terror financing investigations since September 11, according to the government.
I remind you of the case of the Treason Times, the Holy Land Foundation, and the Global Relief Foundation. As the New York Post reported last September, the Justice Department charged that "a veteran New York Times foreign correspondent warned an alleged terror-funding Islamic charity that the FBI was about to raid its office — potentially endangering the lives of federal agents." Times reporter Philip Shenon was accused of blowing the cover on a December 14, 2001 raid of the Global Relief Foundation.
"It has been conclusively established that Global Relief Foundation learned of the search from reporter Philip Shenon of The New York Times," U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald wrote in an Aug. 7, 2002 , letter to the Times' legal department.
Shenon's phone tip to the Muslim charity (which occurred one day before the FBI searched the foundation's offices), Fitzgerald said, "seriously compromised the integrity of the investigation and potentially endangered the safety of federal law-enforcement personnel." The Global Relief Foundation wasn't some beneficent neighborhood charity sending shoes and Muslim Barbie dolls to poor kids overseas. It was designated a terror financing organization in October 2002 by the Treasury Department, which reported that GRF "has connections to, has provided support for, and has provided assistance to Usama Bin Ladin, the al Qaida Network, and other known terrorist groups."
The Muslim charity had "received funding from individuals associated with al Qaida. GRF officials have had extensive contacts with a close associate of Usama Bin Ladin, who has been convicted in a U.S. court for his role in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania." Moreover, the Treasury Department said, "GRF members have dealt with officials of the Taliban, while the Taliban was subject to international sanctions."
Shenon's then-colleague, Judith Miller, had placed a similar call to another Muslim terrorist front financier, the Holy Land Foundation, a few weeks before Shenon's call to the GRF. She was supposedly asking for "comment" on an impending freeze of their assets. According to Fitzgerald in court papers, Miller allegedly also warned them that "government action was imminent." The FBI raided the Holy Land Foundation's offices the day after Miller's article was published in the Times.
The Times' reporters — surprise, surprise--refuse to cooperate with investigators trying to identify the leakers. The government is appealing a ruling protecting the loose-lipped reporters' phone records. Which side are they on? Actions speak louder than words.
Oh, and while they continue to sabotage terror financing investigations, the blabbermouths of the Times should be reminded — as the conservative bloggers Bill Keller despises so much are doing — of their own call in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 for vigorous counterterrorism measures to stop the bankrolling of terror:
"The Bush administration is preparing new laws to help track terrorists through their money-laundering activity and is readying an executive order freezing the assets of known terrorists. Much more is needed, including stricter regulations, the recruitment of specialized investigators and greater cooperation with foreign banking authorities. There must also be closer coordination among America's law enforcement, national security and financial regulatory agencies."
"Much more is needed?" Right. And when the Bush administration came through, the Times stabbed them, and us, in the backs. The lesson is clear. When terror strikes, don't believe a word the know-it-all Times prints. They are opportunistic hindsight hypocrites who endanger us all.
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Comments? paraclete answered on 07/02/06:Traeson, how the definition has expanded. Once treason was a direct attack on the person of the ruler or a deliberate act against the security of the country, and when the free press exercises it's freedom, this is treason too? | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 07/01/06 - it was just my imagination Had an interesting exchange with Dark Crow on the Philosophy Board yesterday .
He presented a proposition by a French conspiracy kook and anti-globalist named Maj. Pierre-Henri Bunel (web site >here )who has been advancing the claim that there is and never was an al-Qaeda .... That it is a myth, concocted by the government to instil fear in order to increase the power of the state.
My basic argument about the Hamadan decision however is just the opposite . For the first time we have now recognized that non-state criminal organizations have the same rights(sans obligations )of nation-states; By implication an unbelievably expansive decision.
I still say that lawless organizations like this in a more civilized time were considered pirates and were dealt with appropriately (sans Geneva protections which is a contract between nation states on how they will conduct warfare against each other and has no application to al Qaeda ).
paraclete answered on 07/02/06:yes it's all an illusion, a figament of George Bush's imagination, a nightmare. And OBL didn't threaten the US again yesterday, that is an illusion too. It's a great pity we all share this nightmare.
Dealing with pirates? what did you do with them, brand them, then hang them. Could that be a solution for the detainees, a little rough justice on the high seas. But first you must catch your pirate, an exceedingly difficult task, it seems.
It has escaped the notice of those who suggest such things that the Geneva Conventions exist to prevent such arbitrary acts. | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 07/01/06 - So Much for Castro's Revolution WASHINGTON (CNN) -- "The U.S. should have assistance in Cuba within weeks of President Fidel Castro's death to support a transitional government and help move the country toward democracy, a government report recommends.
The report was prepared by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, an interagency group co-chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, a Cuban-American.
President Bush created the commission in 2003 to "help hasten and ease Cuba's democratic transition," according to its Web site".
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Maybe, Bush has done one thing right.
I wonder what the details are. paraclete answered on 07/01/06:interferring again | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 06/30/06 - Good News !! Hamas takes 'historic' step. 6/29/2006.
HAMAS yesterday took its biggest step yet towards recognising Israel by agreeing to a programme that calls for establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip alongside the Jewish state, Palestinian officials said.
What are your latest views ??
paraclete answered on 07/01/06:my views remain the same. the Palistinian state already exists, established in 1948, it is called Jordan. these territorties claimed by the Palistians are captured territories, Gaza belonged to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan why not just give them back and let the arabs fight among themselves | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 06/30/06 - More good news !! Chimps and apes to get same rights as humans.
SPAIN is not the first country that springs to mind as a land of animal lovers - it is better known for bullfighting and the large number of stray cats and dogs on its streets.
Is this a sound political decision ?
paraclete answered on 07/01/06:How do you tell the difference? | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 06/29/06 - This seems outrageous to me OK, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not as up on the recent events in Israel as I should be. However, in reading a story today about Israel's mission to recover their captured soldier, I came across this quote:
>>“We have no government, we have nothing. They have all been taken,” said Saeb Erekat, an ally of the moderate Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. “This is absolutely unacceptable and we demand their release immediately.”<<
The MODERATE Abbas?
Excuse me?
So he's only moderately a terrorist?
Am I wrong here?
On another related note: The US (as a whole) could learn a few things about duty, honor, and loyalty from the Israelis. This mission to recover their captured brother simply glows with honor, and sends all the testosterone I've lost from years at a desk in the "real world" rushing all at once back into my system. Seems kinda silly, but after reading about it last night, I laced up my boots and went on a quick 5 mile run. Well, kinda quick.
OK, not as quick as it once would have been.
And I was sucking wind by mile 3.
But damn, it was inspiring to read!
Those are the guys I want on MY side should things go to hell.
But really, Abbas a moderate? WTF?
DK paraclete answered on 06/30/06:Yes they laundered Arafat too when it suited them. This is where the bleeding heart brigade will take you, to sup with the devil. It's all in the name of peace, but there isn't going to be any peace. It won't be long before Hamas is a legitmate government of peaceful extremists.
What a pity noone in the US is prepared to say, you have your Palistinian state, it's called Jordan. That's the state that was set up in 1948 when Palistine was divided between Israel ( for the Jews) and Jordan ( for the Palistinians), but the US has a convenient memory | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 06/29/06 - Gerrymandering Taking a move from the Republican play sheet, states that are likely to go to Democratic governers(NY, NJ, ILL, NJ) in November are likely to call for redistricting, draw new boundaries for congressional districts in order to increase the number of Democratic representatives by perhaps as many as 40 representatives.
Texas Republicans are already in the process of planning to redistrict for the benefit of the Republican party.
Apparently, there is nothing in the Constitution about when redistricting can occur. Redistricting can occur at any time, any number of times.
Comments? paraclete answered on 06/30/06:seems an interesting way to regain control of the house, in an aside to this, in Australia, redrawing the boundries will make Prime Minister John Howard's seat marginal and may hasten his retirement. | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 06/29/06 - Putin does a 180 "Today's New York Times carries the following headline: "Putin orders death for killers of Russians in Iraq."
The story tells of Putin's decision to have Russian military intelligence target the terrorists who killed four of its embassy employees in Iraq. This is the same Putin and the same Russia that has repeatedly criticized Israel for its targeted killing of terrorists, even "ticking bomb" terrorists who are planning imminent attacks.
The Russian Foreign Minister condemns Israel's killing of Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, who was the head of the terrorist organization Hamas and who had pulled the trigger on numerous terrorist attacks. In fact, Putin invited Hamas official to Moscow as his state guests.
According to the BBC article Rantissi Killing: World Reaction, "Russia has repeatedly stressed the unacceptability of extrajudicial settling of scores and 'targeted killings'."
Except, it seems, when its own citizens are murdered by terrorists -- then it is fine to do what it condemns Israel for doing.
The rest of the world is no different: condemning Israel for what they themselves do with impunity.
The time has common to end this double standard.
(I know this posting will stimulate the usual anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, and anti-Dershowitz fulminations, along with some thoughtful responses. The knee-jerk reaction to anything I write about Israel simply confirms my point about the double standard.)
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Nice to see Putin come to his senses. :) paraclete answered on 06/30/06:let's face it extrajudical killings are not justified no matter who pulls the trigger but as a matter of practicallity in dealing with terrorists, those who live by the sword die by the sword. | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 06/30/06 - Half a Trillion Dollars "On September 15th 2002, White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsay estimated the high limit on the cost of the War to be 1-2% of the GNP, or about $100-$200 billion. Later Mitch Daniels, Director of OMB was quoted as saying Iraq will be an affordable endeavor that will not require sustained aid and that the total cost of the war would more likely be between $50-$60 billion.
Paul Wolfowitz stated in March 2003 that oil revenues in Iraq could bring between $50 billion and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years....We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.
But whether you ignore the question or just cannot do the math, the Congressional Research Office (CRS) reported the realities in a June 2006 report.
By the end of the next fiscal year, ****one half a trillion dollars**** will be appropriated for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, with a great majority of the funding attributed to the war in Iraq." John Murtha Blogging
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I bet Bin Laden is smiling at how well his plan to destroy the "Great Satan" is going. He orchestrates a horrific attack on 911, and Bush does the rest of the destroying America. paraclete answered on 06/30/06:Yes the toll in Cash and resources is huge, Bin Laden could not have anticipated the US response just as he didn't anticipate the damage to the WTC | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 06/28/06 - Where exactly... ...does the left stand on anything?
"It's time to bring them home." -John Murtha
"Last month, I introduced Senate Joint Resolution 36 which calls for the withdrawal of our combat troops from Iraq by the end of this year." -John Kerry
"We say bring the troops home now!" -Cindy Sheehan
Finally, Republicans have their own cut'n'run plan
By Molly Ivins
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Salt Lake Tribune
AUSTIN, Texas - And then along comes Cut'n'Run Casey. We spend all last week listening to cut'n'run Democrats talking about their cut'n'run strategy for Iraq, and the only issue is whether they want to cut'n'run by the end of this year or to cut'n'run by the end of next year, and oh, by the way, did I mention that Republicans had been choreographed to refer to the Democrats' plans as cut'n'run?
As Vice President Dick (''Last Throes'') Cheney said Thursday, redeployment of our troops would be ''the worst possible thing we could do. . . . No matter how you carve it - you can call it anything you want - but basically it is packing it in, going home, persuading and convincing and validating the theory that the Americans don't have the stomach for this fight.''
Then right in the middle of Cut'n'Run Week, the top American commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., held a classified briefing at the Pentagon and revealed his plan to reduce the 14 combat brigades now in Iraq to five or six. And here's the best part: Rather than wait 'til the end of this year or, heaven forefend, next year, Casey wants to start moving those troops out in September, just before whatever it is that happens in early November. They don't call him George W. Jr. for nothing.
One has to admit, the party never ends with the Bush administration. The only question about Cut'n'Run Week is whether they meant to punctuate a weeklong festival of referring to Democrats as the party of ''retreat'' and ''the white flag'' with this rather abrupt announcement of their own cut'n'run program. Was it an error of timing?
I say no. I say Karl Rove doesn't make timing mistakes. This administration thoroughly believes the media and the people have a collective recollection of no more than one day. Five days of cut'n'run, one day off and BAM, you get your own cut'n'run plan out there.
"Instead of offering real strategies for success, Republicans continue to play politics with this war. When it comes to Iraq, the only schedule that matters to Republicans is the U.S. election schedule" -Nancy Pelosi
So do they want the troops home or not - or just not in time to give Republicans an election boost? What kind of chutzpah does it take to demand Bush bring the troops home - so long as it's either immediately or after the election? Sounds to me like more evidence that the left is more concerned with power than the lives of our military heroes.
Steveparaclete answered on 06/29/06:the strategy to success is to withdraw | | Question/Answer | | arcura asked on 06/29/06 - What do you think about this? Are we waking up? Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
When WW-III Started****1979
This is not very long, but very informative You have to read the catalogue of events in this brief piece. Then, ask yourself how anyone can take the position that all we have to do is bring our troops home from Iraq, sit back, reset the snooze alarm, go back to sleep, and no one will ever bother us again. In case you missed it, World War III began in November 1979... that alarm has been ringing for years
US Navy Captain Ouimette is the Executive Officer at Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida. Here is a copy of the speech he gave last month. It is an accurate account of why we are in so much trouble today and why this action is so necessary.
AMERICA NEEDS TO WAKE UP!
That's what we think we heard on the 11th of September 2001 (When more than 3,000 Americans were killed -AD) and maybe it was, but I think it should have been "Get Out of Bed!" In fact, I think the alarm clock has been buzzing since 1979 and we have continued to hit the snooze button and roll over for a few more minutes of peaceful sleep since then.
It was a cool fall day in November 1979 in a country going through a religious and political upheaval when a group of Iranian students attacked and seized the American Embassy in Tehran. This seizure was an outright attack on American soil; it was an attack that held the world's most powerful country hostage and paralyzed a Presidency. The attack on this sovereign U. S. embassy set the stage for events to follow for the next 25 years.
America was still reeling from the aftermath of the Vietnam experience and had a serious threat from the Soviet Union when then, President Carter, had to do something. He chose to conduct a clandestine raid in the desert. The ill-fated mission ended in ruin, but stood as a symbol of America's inability to deal with terrorism.
America's military had been decimated and down sized/right sized since the end of the Vietnam War. A poorly trained, poorly equipped and poorly organized military was called on to execute a complex mission that was doomed from the start.
Shortly after the Tehran experience, Americans began to be kidnapped and killed throughout the Middle East. America could do little to protect her citizens living and working abroad. The attacks against US soil continued.
In April of 1983 a large vehicle packed with high explosives was driven into the US Embassy compound in Beirut When it explodes, it kills 63 people. The alarm went off again and America hit the Snooze Button once more.
Then just six short months later in 1983 a ! large truck heavily laden down with over 2500 pounds of TNT smashed through the main gate of the US Marine Corps headquarters in Beirut and 241 US servicemen are killed. America mourns her dead and hit the Snooze Button once more.
Two months later in December 1983, another truck loaded with explosives is driven into the US Embassy in Kuwait, and America continues her slumber.
The following year, in September 1984, another van was driven into the gate of the US Embassy in Beirut and America slept.
Soon the terrorism spreads to Europe. In April 1985 a bomb explodes in a restaurant frequented by US soldiers in Madrid.
Then in August 1985 a Volkswagen loaded with explosives is driven into the main gate of the US Air Force Base at Rhein-Main, 22 are killed and the snooze alarm is buzzing louder and louder as US interests are continually attacked.
Fifty-nine days later in 1985 a cruise ship, the Achille Lauro is hijacked and we watched as an American in a wheelchair is singled out of the passenger list and executed.
The terrorists then shift their tactics to bombing civilian airliners when they bomb TWA Flight 840 in April of 1986 that killed 4 and the most tragic bombing, Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in1988, killing 259.
Clinton treated these terrorist acts as crimes; in fact we are still trying to bring these people to trial. These are acts of war.
The wake up alarm is getting louder and louder.
The terrorists decide to bring the fight to America. In January 1993, two CIA agents are shot and killed as they enter CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
The following month, February 1993, a group of terrorists are arrested after a rented van packed with explosives is driven into the underground parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York City. Six people are killed and over 1000 are injured. Still this is a crime and not an act of war? The Snooze alarm is! depressed again.
Then in November 1995 a car bomb explodes at a US military complex in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia killing seven service men and women.
A few months later in June of 1996, another truck bomb explodes only 35 yards from the US military compound in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. It destroys the Khobar Towers, a US Air Force barracks, killing 19 and injuring over 500. The terrorists are getting braver and smarter as they see that America does not respond decisively.
They move to coordinate their attacks in a simultaneous attack on two US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.. These attacks were planned with precision. They kill 224. America responds with cruise missile attacks and goes back to sleep.
The USS Cole was docked in the port of Aden, Yemen for refueling on 12 October 2000, when a small craft pulled along side the ship and exploded killing 17 US Navy Sailors. Attacking a US War Ship is an act of war, but we sent the FBI to investigate the crime and went back to sleep.
And of course you know the events of 11 September 2001. Most Americans think this was the first attack against US soil or in America. How wrong they are. America has been under a constant attack since 1979 and we chose to hit the snooze alarm and roll over and! go back to sleep.
In the news lately we have seen lots of finger pointing from every high officials in government over what they knew and what they didn't know. But if you've read the papers and paid a little attention I think you can see exactly what they knew. You don't have to be in the FBI or CIA or on the National Security Council to see the pattern that has been developing since 1979.
I think we have been in a war for the past 25 years and it will continue until we as a people decide enough is enough. America needs to "Get out of Bed" and act decisively now. America has been changed forever.. We have to be ready to pay the price and make the sacrifice to ensure our way of life continues. We cannot afford to keep hitting the snooze button again and again and roll over an! d go back to sleep.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Admiral Yamamoto said "... it seems all we have done is awakened a sleeping giant." This is the message we need to disseminate to terrorists around the world.
This is not a political thing to be hashed over in an election year this is an AMERICAN thing. This is about our Freedom and the Freedom of our children in years to come.
If you believe in this please forward it to as many people as you can especially to the young people and all those who dozed off in history class and who seem so quick to protest such a necessary military action. If you don't believe it, just delete it and go back to sleep.
SFC Tafoya, Sean M.
Support Ops Class V NCOIC
HHD, LTF 548
LSA Anaconda, Iraq paraclete answered on 06/29/06:No it wasn't the beginning of WWIII but the beginning of the war against america, the beginning of the war against capitilist imperialism. What you fail to understand is the world understands american duplicity. It understands that the objectivites of america's people and america's leaders are different. Who can condone the actions of Iran, but it isn't the question. Again and again we see that the war is against the oppression of capitalism, against exploitation. The world would be a better place if america would go back to sleep and stop trying to force it's AGenda on tHE rest of tHE world. Have they spoken the truth? perhaps they have, but everytime they have moved beyond this it has brought tragedy to the world. Democracy cannot be won at the point of a gun, this isn't the eighteenth century. Democracy must first take root because a society opposes oppression | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 06/28/06 - What'cha think? Asked Ted Nugent if he could condense and clarify his core political beliefs.
So what are they? Read:
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>>Those that claim they disagree with my politics are unAmerican, even antiAmerican, or just plain stupid. Heres my politics-
1-able bodied people deserve no welfare
2-the gvt owes us accountability for our tax dollars, nothing else
3-free people have the right to self defense & to keep & bear arms
4-criminals must be severely punished & payback their victems
5-unsafe, abhorent, dangerous behaviour must be criminalized & laws enforced
6-courts & judges & prosecutors must be held accountable to we the people
7-free people own their private property & public property to be managed for sustain yeild productivity
for starters. disagree & xpose your soulesness.<<
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ paraclete answered on 06/29/06:These are called the politics of the me first society otherwise known as I'm allright Jack | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 06/28/06 - End of Iraq War and Occupation at Hand ? "BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Eleven Sunni insurgent groups have offered an immediate halt to all attacks - including those on American troops - if the United States agrees to withdraw foreign forces from Iraq in two years, insurgent and government officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Withdrawal is the centerpiece of a set of demands from the groups, which operate north of Baghdad in the heavily Sunni Arab provinces of Salahuddin and Diyala. Although much of the fighting has been to the west, those provinces are increasingly violent and attacks there have crippled oil and commerce routes.
The groups who've made contact have largely shunned attacks on Iraqi civilians, focusing instead on the U.S.-led coalition forces. Their offer coincides with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's decision to reach out to the Sunni insurgency with a reconciliation plan that includes an amnesty for fighters.
The Islamic Army in Iraq, Muhammad Army and the Mujahedeen Shura Council - the umbrella group that covers eight militant groups including al-Qaida in Iraq - were not party to any offers to the government".
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This action may just be the puzzle piece toward progress in getting Iraq back on its feet and under their new government?
What do you think? paraclete answered on 06/29/06:victory at any price, it doesn't value the lives of the coalition forces very highly, but since they shouldn't be there in the first place, it may not be a consideration afterall, they are not Muslim | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 06/26/06 - OK, gonna give it a shot Here is an example of the lovely West Texas springtime weather:
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paraclete answered on 06/27/06:now where I come from we would call that a dust storm. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 06/26/06 - Ape man A member of the Green party, and the Socialist Coalition now governing Spain, Francisco Garrido has proposed legislation that would make Spain the first nation in the world to “give chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and other great apes some of the fundamental rights granted to human beings.”
The law would eliminate the concept of "ownership" for great apes, instead placing them under the "moral guardianship" of the state.Apes held in Spanish zoos would be moved to state-built sanctuaries
The Roman Catholic Church has expressed concerns about his resolution.
The Archbishop of Pamplona and Tudela, Fernando Sebastian, has said that only a "ridiculous or distorted society" could propose such a law.
"We don't give rights to some people - such as unborn children, human embryos, and we are going to give them to apes," the archbishop said.
The proposal has been front page news since parliament heard testimony from members of the Great Ape Project (GAP), a Seattle-based activist group that campaigns for the creation of a "community of equals" in which humans, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans would all have three fundamental rights
If this becomes law how long will it be before it gets adopted in the U.S. ? Who knows ??? ;with some of the Supreme Court's perponderance towards citing foreign laws in their decisions about US Law maybe the Ape's Rights Laws will become American law by fiat .
The principle that humans are unique creatures get's deluted the more science reveals the commonality in Ape and human DNA ;to hell with logos. Might as well go all the way and confer voting rights for them and make sure they get public funded education .."No chimp left behind "!.
paraclete answered on 06/27/06:You know you are right Hairy Chimp for President, he couldn't do a worse job and he certainly would display more intelligence than dubbya | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 06/26/06 - From the Christianity board This cracks me up. I felt the need to copy it over here for the benefit of all.
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Christians can't morally endorse cruel and unusual punishment unless they want to morph Jesus into an "eye for an eye" advocate.
"I celebrated inwardly when it was revealed that a single hold-out juror prevented the so-called twentieth hijacker from 9/11, Zacarias Moussaoui , from receiving the death penalty. This juror gave no reason, but I hope it was conscience pure and simple. The U.S. has isolated itself among First World countries by allowing the death penalty--123 countries have abolished it completely, or in practice never use it, a few permitting it under extreme circumstances.
Of the 50 countries that newly abolished the death penalty since 1985, only 4 have reinstated it. Why aren't more people chilled by the fact that in 2004, 97% of executions took place in China, Iran, Viet Nam, and the U.S.?
Execution amounts to cruel and unusual punishment by the world's prevailing standards. A current case before the Supreme Court is testing that proposition here. Yet somehow the American public feels undisturbed by this issue. Few if any politicians dare to run on the wrong side. In this case "wrong" means humane and rational. Why do we kill criminals? ***The right wing surely can't hide behind morality, unless they want to warp Jesus into an eye-for-an-eye advocate.***
No, the death penalty is almost entirely irrational. It has little if any deterrent effect. Tragic mistakes have been made in its application. The very fact that inmates must wait on death row for years, even decades, is cruel enough. How many times do they die in their own minds before the actual event?
The landscape of cruelty in America has become more and more disturbing recently. Guantanamo is a global disgrace, yet one hears feeble outcries over it here, especially in Congress. Abu Ghraib has led to minimal repercussions, and rumors of CIA torture centers in Eastern Europe sound all too plausible. The fact that the tide of cruelty has crept up gradually is no excuse.
Having escaped death, Moussaoui now faces doing time in a "super max" prison in Florence, Colorado, where Terry Nichols (co-conspirator with Timothy McVeigh) and Ted Kaczynski (the Unibomber) already endure conditions that frequently induce psychosis. A super max prison is an antiseptic hell where inmates sit in isolation for 23 hours a day, being allowed out of their cells for only an hour's exercise. They have no human contact, no television, no library except for a collection of law books (access to legal information is mandated by the courts). In some of these facilities, which have grown extremely popular in recent decades, the cells are lit up 24 hours a day under surveillance cameras.
Under what possible moral scheme can a civilized country consider this anything but barbaric? Our prisons are called penitentiaries (from the root word 'penance') because over two hundred years ago it was felt that an enlightened society must move beyond Old Testament revenge for wrong-doing. Now we have slipped back across that moral boundary, and the saddest thing, in this boom time for building more prisons, locking away more non-violent criminals, and handing down maximum sentences, is that we have learned to condone cruelty almost as if it didn't exist. As if it was a good thing."===Deepak Chopra, Blogging
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Now, is it just me, or does the signature line really say all that needs to be said? paraclete answered on 06/27/06:surely it's enough to answer this once. | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 06/24/06 - Found the W'sMD? Guess we can go home. "We now have found stockpiles." - Rick Santorum Wednesday, June 21, 2006 - two days ago
"It turns out there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after all. Up to 500 canisters of degraded chemical weaponry that, according to David Kay who headed the U.S. weapons-hunting team in Iraq from 2003 until early 2004, is about as hazardous as what the average American household has under their sink.
They can cause burns but are unlikely to kill anyone. The canisters pre-date the first Gulf War.
This didn't stop master politician Rick Santorum from trotting out the evidence. Proof that there were Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq after all. I applaud Rick Santorum on two points. First, for acknowledging that the reason we went to Iraq was to search for weapons of mass destruction. It's nice to see the Senator, who has been such a supporter of the war, ***admit to the original pretext that would turn Iraq into a ^breeding ground^ for terrorists and cost 2,500 American soldiers their lives***. It would be easy to forget with the constant drumbeat out of Washington about Democracy being on the march, and bringing freedom to the Middle East, the original reason for the invasion. A lot of people think we went to Iraq to make life better for the Iraqi people. Santorum has the courage to remind us that's ***not why*** we are there.
The administration is on the same page. "They are weapons of mass destruction. They are harmful to human beings. And they have been found," Donald Rumsfeld said. Weapons of Mass Destruction can now be reduced to things that burn. The bar is lowering.
The other great thing about Rick Santorum, engaged in a heated Senate race he is destined to lose, reaching his fundamentalist arms around these old, leaky, degraded canisters, is the Republican policy, under the Bush administration, of **stretching the un-truth, of manipulating intelligence for political ends**. It's like 2002 all over again. It's uranium in Niger, it's the Downing Street memo, it's a capability to launch a nuclear attack in less than an hour, it's tubes on a boat, it's Colin Powell's slide show to the United Nations, it's weapons-of-mass-destruction-related-activities. Here now, in plain view, a loony Republican Senator reducing the war in Iraq to these old, probably lost canisters.
"Remember," he tells us, "Saddam Hussein killed 5,000 of his own people with just three of these canisters."
We, of course, have killed at least 30,000 of Saddam's people, and probably many, many more, in our search for those elusive uranium enriched aluminum tubes. And when we didn't find those we said we were spreading Democracy. Now that we have failed on that front it's good to see the argument returning to its roots. ***Now that we've found the weapons of mass destruction we can go home***.
To quote Rudolph Giuliani at the Republican National Convention which I had the pleasure to attend. "Weapons of mass destruction? Saddam Hussein was himself a weapon of mass destruction." The man farted nitrogen. ****The catastrophe is ours.****
- Stephen Elliott is the author of Looking Forward To It Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The American Political Process
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ paraclete answered on 06/25/06:What has been found, the residue, but not the WMD on which the invasion was based. Let's face it, whereever these have been buried, they will stay there unless Saddam tells what he has done, and he's unlikely to do that with a death sentence. Perhaps it's not a bad thing that they are where they are, they may be less of an environmental hazard that way. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 06/24/06 - premptive strike Two Cintonoids; Ashton B. Carter assistant secretary of defense and William Perry secretary of defense;wrote an oped in the Washington Compost calling on President Bush to strike the North Korean missile on its launchpad if Kim Jong Il is determined to test fire the rocket.
Should the United States allow a country openly hostile to it and armed with nuclear weapons to perfect an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering nuclear weapons to U.S. soil? We believe not....... intervening before mortal threats to U.S. security can develop is surely a prudent policy.
If we did that then .....umm ..I think I would have to ask these two military 'experts' what their next step is ;what is their 'exit strategy ' ? Have they considered the implications of such a move ? Would this not be in violation of 'international law'? If it is right to prempt now ,why was no premption done in the early 1990s when their nuclear program was in it's infancy ? (As Mark Levin adds : you big dummy!)
Do they really want to risk the possibility of all out war being waged against S. Korea in retaliation ?
Maybe this is why murky Murtha thinks we should re-deploy to Okinawa .Of course the Japanese would be more than justified to fire up their Aegis systems if the trajectory of a launch was to overfly Japanese territory .But this call for a premptive stike against a test fire is foolish and over-kill.
As Dick Cheney said this week ""I think, at this stage, we are addressing the issue in the proper fashion," he said. "Obviously, if you are going to launch strikes at another nation, you better be prepared to not fire just one shot. The fact of the matter is, I think, the issue is being addressed appropriately."
He added "I appreciate Bill's advice" ...LOL
Besides mopping up in Iraq ,Bush has time left for one other military initiative and he has to remain focused on the growing Iran threat. General Casey in this weeks press conference spoke of the growing interference in Iraq by Iran. I suggest that the redeployment beyond the horizon should move East towards Tehran and North towards Damascus. paraclete answered on 06/25/06:Now whe have a test of leadership not just rhetoric. The North Koreans are going to push the envelope as far as they can in order to win whatever concessions they might | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 06/23/06 - Read This and Get P*ssed-Off From the website baltmoresun dot com.
"WASHINGTON // Nearly five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security continue to clash over who is in charge of coordinating and vetting information on terrorism. As a result, state and local authorities continue to get conflicting or incomplete information - sometimes none at all - on threats inside the United States, officials say.
The feud over control of the information caused federal agencies last week to miss a White House deadline for outlining how it should be distributed to state and local authorities, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said yesterday.
The absence of a federal game plan is causing "confusion at the state level," said Col. Ken Bouche, who heads the information management division of the Illinois State Police. "The longer we wait ... the more leads we miss."
Under federal law, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security are considered the main repositories for information about terrorism.
In part because it has a long-established system for sharing information through joint task forces, the Justice Department was at first "somewhat resistant" to the notion of a broader plan, said a counterterrorism official familiar with the issue. Eventually, officials at Justice agreed that Homeland Security had an important role to play and that a plan was needed to incorporate the department.
Meanwhile, though Homeland Security officials were well-intentioned, they consistently took the position that the legislation that created the department gave it sole responsibility for information sharing, the counterterrorism official said.
In a December memo, President Bush directed Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to provide a solution by June 14.
But White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said yesterday that the president still had not received their proposal and left open when she expected it to arrive.
"They reached some consensus on broad aspects of the framework, and they are still working," she said. "We expect to see some additional progress soon."
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So, the heads of two of Bush's agencies are having a TURF WAR??????????
So much for the Bush Crime Family protecting American soil from terrorist attacks. They are in a TURF WAR.
Gambling with the lives of American's everywhere. paraclete answered on 06/24/06:ah beauracracy isn't it beautiful | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 06/23/06 - THE MICE WILL PLAY: Ever seen "The Fleecing Of America" on NBC Nightly News? Those politicians are stealing us blind. After they're exposed, there are no follow-ups re: final dispositions of this hanky panky. Are they repremanded in some way? Perhaps a slap on the wrist? What can the average American citizen do about giving these Devils their due?
* Please don't tell me we can vote them out of office. If they leave the White House, more mice will take their place and do the same thing.
HANK paraclete answered on 06/24/06:yes the system is rotten, nothing else for it but to have a revolution and stand them against the wall. anarchy, every man with a gun and the will to use it, that will solve the problem. Problem is, you can't fix the system unless you start at the top and very few have ever been successful at that endeavour. Dictator ship is the answer, no need fro legislators withy their snout in the trough, a benevolent leader who grants his largesse to all appalants, a far better system. | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 06/22/06 - Is this the aetiology? .... .... ...... .......
Report: U.S. May Have Been Abused During Formative Years
June 21, 2006 | Issue 42•25
WASHINGTON, DC—A team of leading historians and psychiatrists issued a report Wednesday claiming that the United States was likely the victim of abuse by its founding fathers and motherland when it was a young colony.
Enlarge ImageUS
The War of 1812, an example of early abuse by the motherland.
"In its adulthood, the U.S. displays all the classic tendencies of a nation that was repeatedly mistreated in its infancy—difficulty forming lasting foreign relationships, viewing everyone as a potential enemy, and employing a pattern of assault and intimidation to assert its power," said Dr. Howard Drexel, the report's lead author. "Because of trust issues stemming from the abuse, America has become withdrawn, has not made an ally in years, and often resents the few nations that are willing to lend support—most countries outgrow this kind of behavior after 230 years."
According to Drexel, nations that act out in selfish, self-destructive ways in statehood were usually granted too much independence at an early age, especially if the motherland had other newly annexed lands to care for.
According to Yale University psychology professor John Bauffman, while some rebellious behavior in a nation's adolescence is common, and sometimes healthy, America's historically stormy relationship with mother country Great Britain points to a deep need for acceptance.
"The U.S. is characteristic of an abused nation in that, even decades after noisily pushing away from Britain, it still maintained close contact with the motherland, took care of it, even giving it financial aid—all the while fearing disapproval even though the parent country is now old, decrepit, and powerless," said Bauffman, a prominent contributor to the fourth edition of the Democratic Symptoms Of Maltreatment handbook, or DSM-IV. "On the other hand, Canada, which was raised in the very same continent by the same mother country, only exercised small-scale resistance, remaining loyal well into its maturity. Though some see Canada as cold and remote, it has, unlike the U.S., managed to lead a peaceful, reasonably healthy existence."
Bauffman pointed to another telltale sign of abuse in the U.S.'s tendency to bully, torture, and persecute less powerful, vulnerable creatures, such as buffalo, passenger pigeons, forests, and Native Americans.
Although the American nation appeared to be on the road to recovery by the early 1990s, watershed events such as the open discussion of sexual issues, a protracted custody battle in the closing months of 2000, and a series of threats and physical attacks from enemy nations triggered centuries of repressed memories and set off a recurring pattern of violent outbursts and emotional volatility.
"America compensated for early mistreatment by taking out this pent-up aggression on other nations—getting involved in aggressive conflicts seemingly just for the thrill of it, starting arguments and wars that can't be won, suspecting that everyone is out to get them," Drexel said. "This nation needs help, but by its very nature, refuses to accept it."
Drexel defended the study's findings amid claims that America's current condition can be attributed to a much wider variety of factors.
"Granted, part of America's problems may stem from the fact that it was burdened with a false sense of responsibility at a young age because of the unrealistic expectations of the country's forefathers, and there is certainly something to be said about America having been part of a broken homeland for a four-year period in the mid-19th century," Drexel said. "Even though the U.S. is over 200 years old, emotionally it's younger than Lithuania."
Added Drexel: "But we must remember that the country also idealized the forefathers in a classic victim–abuser relationship."
The report recommended that the United Nations Security Council once again renew its efforts to organize an international intervention to help the U.S. get the counseling it needs. Prior attempts have failed to move beyond the planning stage, however, with many countries saying they are afraid that the U.S. may lash out.
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Is there any foundation for believeing this?
paraclete answered on 06/22/06:Nations are not children | | Question/Answer | | Judgment_Day asked on 06/22/06 - Alright US Citizens And Legal Residents... Ted Kennedy was screaming his lungs out again and this time it was for a national minimum wage increase. I think it already was shot down by some of his miserly cohorts. I was with Ted on this one all the way. It's been at least nine year since the last federal increase. Too bad it will not happen. In recent posts we addressed tax-cuts, limitations to welfare programs, and reduced funding for such programs as the arts...on balance I believe the one natural resource that's not a just a figure is humans, our families. Some States were so embarrassed by our federal governments lack of response to increase the wage for almost a decade that they chose to increase the minimum wage statewide on their own.
Meanwhile....
WASHINGTON -- Despite record low approval ratings, House lawmakers Tuesday embraced a $3,300 pay raise that will increase their salaries to $168,500.
The 2 percent cost-of-living raise would be the seventh straight for members of the House and Senate.
Lawmakers easily squelched a bid by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, to get a direct vote to block the COLA, which is automatically awarded unless lawmakers vote to block it.
In the early days of GOP control of Congress, lawmakers routinely denied themselves the annual COLA. Last year, the Senate voted 92-6 to deny the raise but quietly surrendered the position in House-Senate talks.
As part of an ethics reform bill in 1989, Congress gave up their ability to accept pay for speeches and made annual cost-of-living pay increases automatic unless the lawmakers voted otherwise.
The pay issue has been linked to the annual Transportation and Treasury Department spending bill because that measure stipulates that civil servants get raises of 2.7 percent, the same as military personnel will receive. Under a complicated formula, the increase translates to 2 percent for members of Congress.
Like last year, Matheson led a quixotic drive to block the raise. He was the only member to speak on the topic.
"I do not think that it is appropriate to let this bill go through without an up or down vote on whether or not Congress should have an increase in its own pay," Matheson said.
But by a 249-167 vote, the House rejected Matheson's procedural attempt to get a direct vote on the pay raise.
The pay raise would also apply to the vice president - who is president of the Senate - congressional leaders and Supreme Court justices.
This year, Vice President Cheney, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Chief Justice William Rehnquist receive $212,100. Associate justices receive $203,000. House and Senate party leaders get $183,500.
President George W. Bush's salary of $400,000 is unaffected by the legislation.
paraclete answered on 06/22/06:Isn't it time you guys started talking about real wages, not minimum wages. The concept of a minimum wage is this is as little as is necessary which is a wrong emphasis. | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 06/21/06 - Article on the US economy. The Wonder of Voodoo Economics
Bush 43 gets it.
By Rich Lowry
Who says you can’t cut taxes, increase spending, and reduce the federal budget deficit all at the same time? That’s what the Bush administration has managed to do. Two decades after then-presidential candidate George H.W. Bush characterized Ronald Reagan’s idea that tax cuts would spur revenue-generating economic growth as “voodoo economics,” the witch doctor is again at work.
When President Bush pledged in 2004 to cut the deficit in half by 2009, critics guffawed. The Boston Globe headlined a story, “Bush’s plan to halve federal deficit seen as unlikely; higher spending, lower taxes don’t mix, analysts say.” “Fanciful,” “laughable” and “all spin,” said the critics.
Well, it turns out that 2009 might be coming early this year. The 2004 deficit had been projected to hit $521 billion, or 4.5 percent of gross domestic product. Bush’s goal was to cut it to 2.25 percent of GDP by 2009—not exactly as stirring a national goal as putting a man on the moon, but one that was nonetheless pronounced unattainable. This year, the deficit could go as low as $300 billion, right around the 2009 goal of 2.5 percent of GDP.
The key to the reduction is revenue growth, which has been stoked by economic growth. Government revenues are up 12.9 percent in the first eight months of this year over the same eight-month period last year—without any tax increases. When individuals, investors, and corporations have more cash in a growing economy, they send more to the federal government in tax payments.
This, despite—or, more accurately, because of—a couple of rounds of Bush tax cuts that were supposed to have been fiscally ruinous. The Bush tax reductions played some role in the economic expansion and therefore are responsible, partly, for the increased revenues. This doesn’t mean that tax cuts “pay for themselves,” as their most fervent advocates say. But they certainly can offset some of their own cost.
In 1999, the Congressional Budget Office was projecting 2006 total federal revenues of nearly $2.4 trillion, prior to anyone foreseeing Bush’s tax cuts. This year, revenue could go as high as nearly $2.4 trillion, even after those tax cuts. In January 2003, prior to Bush’s second round of tax cuts in that year, the CBO guessed revenues would be close to $2.4 trillion this year—again, in the ballpark of where they could be this year.
According to Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation, if annual spending increases in the Bush years had been limited to the rate of the Clinton years, roughly 3.3 percent, there would be a federal surplus now. Instead, spending has been growing at 8 percent a year. That demonstrates that the formula for deficit reduction from the 1990s—moderate-spending restraint coupled with higher-than-expected growth-generated revenues—would work again today, if only someone could manage the moderate-spending restraint.
Another similarity from the 1990s is that the revenue surge is driven by high-end earners and corporations. Liberals always rue it when the rich get richer, but when they don’t, the federal fisc tends to be ruined because they are the ones who pay most of the taxes. The deficit climbed unexpectedly in the early Bush years and is declining unexpectedly now, not because the projections for economic growth were wildly off, but because the kind of people who pay the most taxes took a bath early in the decade and are recovering now. Almost 47 percent of income taxes are paid by those making more than $200,000 a year, and they are thriving again. A chunk of the current revenue surge is also from corporate income taxes, which are up 30 percent over last year.
There are limits to voodoo. Today’s fiscal improvements will be overwhelmed by the exploding costs of entitlements just over the horizon. In light of that, we should be maintaining a high-growth, low-tax economy to reap all the benefits of growth, but dutifully restraining entitlements. That’s not sorcery, but just good sense.
— Rich Lowry is author of Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years.
(c) 2006 King Features Syndicate.
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Hmmmm... tax cuts paying for themselves through increased economic activity that generates higher tax revenue from lower tax rates? Budget deficits that are reduced through tax cuts? Where have I heard that before?
Nah, it would never work... just like it didn't work for Reagan... except that it did. Twice, now.
Elliot paraclete answered on 06/22/06:It seems George might be learning from the Australian experience and if the US economy goes the same way you can look forward to more tax cuts. | | Question/Answer | | Judgment_Day asked on 06/21/06 - AMERICANS THAT WORK FOR A LIVING.... ...AND that includes working legally and earning an honest crime-free living. OK I think most people want the personal immediate relief of tax-cuts. However beyond tax relief discussions (which is a moot point for me personally since I've never received much if any relief from any of the presidents including Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton or GW)....I would like to propose that our United States should stop promoting hand-outs. I'm a proponent for having a president that would fight for cutting back on some programs and tightening qualifications. I would especially like to see time limits placed on how long an individual could benefit from the welfare system. Besides the hand-outs to our own society we should also consider all the money allocated via budget spending that will eventually come out of our pockets for rebuilding Iraq and other foreign infrastructure.
*I do think we should have funds raised (even if by taxation) and placed in budget for disaster relief, etc... So just to be clarify I believe some programs are good and necessary.
Comments? paraclete answered on 06/21/06:a typical dog in the manger attitude, blame the victim. If you share that bone around you might just find there are more bones | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 06/20/06 - Things that make you say "What the...?" 'Tolerant' Governor fires 'intolerant' Christian
A public official in Maryland has been fired by the Republican governor because he merely expressed his personal beliefs and the teaching of his church that homosexuality is immoral. Robert Smith was fired from his position on the Metro board by Gov. Robert Ehrlich, Jr. after a homosexual complained.
Gov. Ehrlich said he is intolerant to any view that opposes the full social acceptance of homosexual behavior and its promotion in government. He said Smith's comments were "highly inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable. They are in direct conflict to my administration's commitment to...tolerance." Gov. Ehrlich contradicted his own statement! He is promoting tolerance toward homosexual practice while being intolerant to Smith's Christian beliefs and the teaching of his church.
To read the article by the Baltimore Sun newspaper, click here.
Addressing his views on homosexual marriage, Smith said: "Homosexual behavior, in my view, is deviant. I'm a Roman Catholic. The comments I make in public outside of my [Metro board job] I'm entitled to make." His personal beliefs, he said, have "absolutely nothing to do with running trains and buses and have not affected my actions or decisions on this board."
Smith responded to a speaker who said homosexuals do not want the government interfering in their sex life. "That's fine, that's fine," Smith said. "But that doesn't mean that government should proffer a special place of entitlement within the laws of the United States for persons of sexual deviancy."
Smith said he has always supported the transit agency's policy against all forms of discrimination. Asked if he planned to apologize to Metro board member Jim Graham, an open homosexual who called for Smith's firing, Smith replied: "I didn't make the comments to Mr. Graham...I'm sorry he feels that way. I don't agree that his lifestyle is an appropriate way to lead one's life."
Smith was fired not because he wasn't doing a good job. He was fired not because of his practice, but because of his thinking! He was fired because he held different beliefs. So much for tolerance!
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"Tolerance," huh? What a friggin' joke.
Anymore, it's apparently not civil enough to respectfully agree to disagree. One must fully abandon one's beliefs and completely jump on the "PC Cause of the Moment" bandwagon, or risk quite a bit.
"Freedom for me, but not for thee" is the order of the day, eh?
DK
paraclete answered on 06/21/06:Yes well the thought police are everywhere these days, but beware of homosexuality, they intend to make it mandatory | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 06/19/06 - 2 American Prisoners of War Al Quaeda is now holding 2 American soldiers prisoners of war. I wonder what will happen to them? I'm thinking that the barbarians will decapitate them on Arab television because of what happened to Zarqawi last week.
What are the rules for handling prisoners of war? paraclete answered on 06/19/06:are they prisoners of war? Al Qaeda is not a country but an "illegal combatant" and not subject to the conventions. It seems that america has been hoisted on it's own pitard. They are unable to demand better treatment than they have handed out to Al Qaeda members held in Cuba and while nonone would want them treated as others have been treated it seems unlikely they will be given mercy | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 06/16/06 - Looking for information Does anyone have a website that shows the new document (translated) that was released by the Iraqi government that details the problems al Qaeda is having? The one that was found at Zarqawi's (not so) safe house? The NY Post reported on the document today and Ralph Peters had a nice op-ed piece on it. I was hoping to get a copy of the document for my records so that I could reference it later.
Elliot paraclete answered on 06/17/06:http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20060615-1544-iraq.html
you might find what you want there
vaya con Dios | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 06/16/06 - Let the hand wringing begin House passes politically charged Iraq resolution
By Vicki Allen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a vote charged with election-year politics, the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday passed a symbolic resolution that wrapped the Iraq conflict into the war on terrorism and rejected a deadline for U.S. troop withdrawal.
The House voted 256-153 for the resolution that sparked two days of emotional debate as Republicans sought to depict Democrats as weak on terrorism while Democrats decried President George W. Bush's policies that they said led to chaos in Iraq and detracted from the fight against al Qaeda.
"Will we fight or will we retreat? That's the question that's posed to us," said House Majority Leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican. "Defeating repressive radical terrorists and their allies is our defining task of the 21st century."
But in impassioned debate, Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat, erupted in anger at Republicans who talked about continuing the fight in Iraq.
Murtha, a Vietnam veteran and defense hawk who rocked the Congress last year when he turned against the war, said it was "easy to stay in an air-conditioned office and say I'm going to stay the course." He added, "That's why I get so upset when they stand here sanctimoniously and say we're fighting this thing. It's the troops that are doing the fighting."
© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
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Senate Rejects U.S. Troop Pullout in Iraq
By LIZ SIDOTI
WASHINGTON - Congress plunged into divisive election-year debate on the Iraq war Thursday as the U.S. military death toll reached 2,500. The Senate soundly rejected a call to withdraw combat troops by year's end, and House Republicans laid the groundwork for their own vote.
In a move Democrats criticized as gamesmanship, Senate Republicans brought up the withdrawal measure and quickly dispatched it for now on a 93-6 vote.
The proposal would have allowed "only forces that are critical to completing the mission of standing up Iraqi security forces" to remain in Iraq in 2007.
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Comments? paraclete answered on 06/17/06:Get out now, what other decison could there be. This is just a knee jerk reaction to the killing of al-Zarqawi, more "mission accomplished" BS on the part of the hawks. To stay risks being embroilled in conflict for years to come in Iraq | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 06/16/06 - Is the 4th Estate the 5th Column ? Suppose that you were a newpaper editor and you were confronted with the facts of a story that reveals a correlation Between coverage of terrorist attacks linked directly to an increase in terrorist attacks ? What would you do ?
It's a macabre example of win-win in what economists call a "common-interest game," say Bruno S. Frey of the University of Zurich and Dominic Rohner of Cambridge University.
"Both the media and terrorists benefit from terrorist incidents," their study contends. Terrorists get free publicity for themselves and their cause. The media, meanwhile, make money "as reports of terror attacks increase newspaper sales and the number of television viewers."
The researchers counted direct references to terrorism between 1998 and 2005 in the New York Times and Neue Zuercher Zeitung, a respected Swiss newspaper. They also collected data on terrorist attacks around the world during that period. Using a statistical procedure called the Granger Causality Test , they attempted to determine whether more coverage directly led to more attacks.
The results, they said, were unequivocal: Coverage caused more attacks, and attacks caused more coverage -- a mutually beneficial spiral of death that they say has increased because of a heightened interest in terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001.
You would think this would prompt editors and producers to think hard about how they cover terrorism ,but as the saying goes "if it bleeds it leads " . Funny ;I thought the press was sensitive to charges that it can be manipulated .
paraclete answered on 06/17/06:and we needed a statistical procedure to tell us that? personal experience would have been enough to tell us about our own reactions to 9/11, the London Bombing, the Iraq War, to tell us they are just reacting to demand. the media love sensationalism, the public love sensationalism, it's a symbiotic relationship. | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 06/16/06 - Where do you stand? International pressure to close Camp Delta and either release or try the detainees in a court of law is mounting. National protection versus the rights of individuals - where do you stand? paraclete answered on 06/16/06:everyone deserves fair hearing, if they are not soldiers then they might be murderers either way the war in their countries is over, Bush said it himself in Iraq Mission Accomplished, how then can a double standard be applied to these people, either prove the case against them or let them go | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 06/15/06 - Arctic dips as global waters rise Arctic sea level has been falling by a little over 2mm a year - a movement that sets the region against the global trend of rising waters.
A Dutch-UK team made the discovery after analysing radar altimetry data gathered by Europe's ERS-2 satellite.
It is well known that the world's oceans do not share a uniform height; but even so, the scientists are somewhat puzzled by their results.
Global sea level is expected to keep on climbing as the Earth's climate warms.
To find the Arctic out of step, even temporarily, emphasises the great need for more research in the region, the team says.
"We have high confidence in the results; it's now down to the geophysics community to explain them," said Dr Remko Scharroo, from consultants Altimetrics LLC, who led the study.
Next year has been designated International Polar Year, and major oceanographic expeditions are planned to take research vessels into the northern region to sample its icy waters.
"This may provide clues as to what is causing the changes we're seeing," explained co-researcher Dr Seymour Laxon, from University College London (UCL). "I think it's a true statement to say the Arctic Ocean is the least well understood body of water out there."
The recent trend could be linked to changes in the temperature and salinity (saltiness) of Arctic waters. This would have to be investigated, he said.
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Ok you smart people, help them out here. paraclete answered on 06/15/06:without digging too deep, fresh water is less salty and has a higher freezing temperature. As artic ice melts the salt concentration is diluted and there is less ice. Ice is less dense that water and so as it melts the sea level will drop for a given volume but melting of the ice caps over land, Greenland, North America, Asia, Antarica will realse huge volumes of water inundating low lying areas.
It's a viscous cycle; temperate rise melts ice which cannot reform without temperature reduction. | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 06/12/06 - Asymetrical Warfare When a hostage commits suicide, it is called asymetrical warfare. Guantanamo has been home for what, after *five years* of captivity - no charges made - not released, fully amounts to *hostage* status. There are plans to enlarge Gitmo.
Let's not lose out American Democratic values. paraclete answered on 06/13/06:Asymetrical Warfare ~ that's one sided warfare.
Iraq has been reasonably one sided, thousands of coalition troops and a few hundred insurgents and yet three years later it still goes on.
| | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 06/11/06 - Now, that's progress? Oklahoma legalises execution of repeat child molesters
June 11, 2006
The governor of the US state of Oklahoma has signed a bill allowing for the execution of repeat child molesters, a move that some critics argue is unconstitutional.
The US Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that the death penalty can only be applied in murder cases, but the author of the Oklahoma bill said it is time to challenge that ruling.
"Predators with multiple convictions for child molestation have proven they will continue to prey on Oklahoma's children until they are stopped," state senator Jay Gumm said in a statement.
"The crime of child molestation ripples throughout the life of a child, robbing them of their innocence and sense of safety," the Democrat lawmaker added.
"We need to send the message as a state, that if you repeatedly prey on our children we will find you, prosecute you, convict you and execute you."
The Oklahoma law makes people convicted of rape and other sex crimes more than once against children younger than 14 years of age eligible for execution.
Oklahoma is the fifth state to allow the death penalty for sex crimes against children.
The bill's signing by Democrat governor Brad Henry yesterday came a day after his Republican counterpart in South Carolina endorsed similar legislation in honour of a girl murdered last year by a registered sex offender.
South Carolina governor Mark Sanford said in a statement that the law, called Jessie's Law for the victim, would "be an incredibly powerful deterrent to offenders that have already been released.
"Jessie's Law is about sending a very clear message that there are some lines you do not cross," Sanford said.
The other states with similar legislation are Louisiana, Florida and Montana. Louisiana has one inmate on death row for the crime, but the case has not yet made its way through the appellate process.
In 1977, the US Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty could not be imposed on someone convicted for the rape of an adult woman.
Some critics warned that making child molesting a capital offence could further endanger children.
"There's an incentive not to leave the victim alive," warned Colin Garrett, the Death Penalty Resource Counsel for the National Association of Criminal Defence Lawyers.
Another concern is that the severity of the punishment will prevent some victims -- or their families -- from reporting the abuse because most children are molested by family members, he added.
There are 38 US states which currently allow for the death penalty and 1,026 people have been executed since it was reinstated in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre.
More than 120 people in the United States have been released from death row since 1973 because evidence surfaced of their innocence.
The number of death penalties imposed has declined dramatically in recent years, to 125 in 2004 from 276 in 1999, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre. There were 3,370 people on death row in the United States on April 1.
AFP paraclete answered on 06/12/06:Yes it is progress, anything that pushes back the tide of stupidity and rids society of vermin is progress. The same should be done for repeat drug trafficers, murders, rapists, muggers. Not three stripes and you are locked up but two strikes and you are out, no reprieve, no appeal, no life sentence. We are not talking here about some one wronly convicted but someone who hasn't reformed. | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 06/11/06 - IMMIGRANT DISEASES:
Does the influx of illegal aliens have serious hidden medical consequences?
paraclete answered on 06/12/06:Undoubtedly they bring problems with them. For example, head lice were vertially unknown here before we began accepting middle eastern immigrants, we don't know what other diseases immigrants bring with them which are a minor problem in their homeland but a real problem to a population with no resistence. There have been many instances of this in the past, measles, small pox and so on devistated native populations when european migrantion to the Americas and Australia began, it can work in reverse. In many countries there is a cursory health check at the border and anyone who is obviously ill is held back, with illegal immigrants there is no check. Only the virilence of current problems lessens the incidence of spreading disease by killing the victims quickly | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 06/09/06 - Timetable "Representative John P. Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and former marine who has become a fierce critic of the Iraq war, said now that a "real thorn" in the side of the Americans has been removed, Iraqi forces were trained and a government was in place, the Bush administration should compose a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops.
"We cannot win this," he said in an interview on CNN. "It is a civil war they are involved in. Al Qaeda is a small part of this."
He added, "We have Sunnis fighting Shiites and the Americans are caught in between."
The insurgency and violence in Iraq is fueled by a complicated fabric of foreign fighters, Saddam Hussein loyalists and other groups, while most recently, militias have been blamed for sectarian strife."
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American soldiers caught up in a civil war?
Do you agree with Murtha that a timetable is needed? paraclete answered on 06/09/06:Yes there is little doubt is a civil war and the sooner foreigners are out the better | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 06/07/06 - An Inconvenient Quiz Sitting here during an inconvenient cool spell in NY the week that Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth' was released in this market I came across this quiz . Your task is to determine if the below quotes were from Al Gore or from the Unabomber .
...................................................
1."The twentieth century has not been kind to the constant human striving for a sense of purpose in life. Two world wars, the Holocaust, the invention of nuclear weapons, and now the global environmental crises have led many of us to wonder if survival - much less enlightened, joyous, and hopeful living - is possible. We retreat into the seductive tools and technologies of industrial civilization, but that only creates new problems as we become increasingly isolated from one another and disconnected from our roots."
2."Again, we must not forget the lessons of World War II. The Resistance slowed the advance of fascism and scored important victories, but fascism continued its relentless march to domination until the rest of the world finally awoke and made the difference and made the defeat of fascism its central organizing principle from 1941 through 1945."
3."It is not necessary for the sake of nature to set up some chimerical utopia or any new kind of social order. Nature takes care of itself: It was a spontaneous creation that existed long before any human society, and for countless centuries, many different kinds of human societies coexisted with nature without doing it an excessive amount of damage. Only with the Industrial Revolution did the effect of human society on nature become really devastating."
4."Modern industrial civilization, as presently organized, is colliding violently with our planet's ecological system. The ferocity of its assault on the earth is breathtaking, and the horrific consequences are occurring so quickly as to defy our capacity to recognize them, comprehend their global implications, and organize an appropriate and timely response. Isolated pockets of resistance fighters who have experienced this juggernaut at first hand have begun to fight back in inspiring but, in the final analysis, woefully inadequate ways."
5."Among the abnormal conditions present in modern industrial society are excessive density of population, isolation of man from nature, excessive rapidity of social change and the breakdown of natural small-scale communities such as the extended family, the village or the tribe."
6." All pre-industrial societies were predominantly rural. The Industrial Revolution vastly increased the size of cities and the proportion of the population that lives in them, and modern agricultural technology has made it possible for the Earth to support a far denser population than it ever did before."
7."The positive ideal that is proposed is Nature. That is, wild nature: those aspects of the functioning of the Earth and its living things that are independent of human management and free of human interference and control."
8."Any child born into the hugely consumptionist way of life so common in the industrial world will have an impact that is, on average, many times more destructive than that of a child born in the developing world."
9."And tragically, since the onset of the scientific and technological revolution, it has become all too easy for ultrarational minds to create an elaborate edifice of clockwork efficiency capable of nightmarish cruelty on an industrial scale. The atrocities of Hitler and Stalin, and the mechanical sins of all who helped them, might have been inconceivable except for the separation of facts from values and knowledge from morality."
10."The modern individual on the other hand is threatened by many things against which he is helpless: nuclear accidents, carcinogens in food, environmental pollution, war, increasing taxes, invasion of his privacy by large organizations, and nationwide social or economic phenomena that may disrupt his way of life."
11."Industrial society seems likely to be entering a period of severe stress, due in part to problems of human behavior and in part to economic and environmental problems."
12. "What does it say about our culture that personality is now considered a technology, a tool of the trade, not only in politics but in business and the professions? Has everyone been forced to become an actor? In sixteenth century England, actors were not allowed to be buried in the same cemeteries as 'God-fearing folk,' because anyone willing to manipulate his personality for the sake of artifice, even to entertain, was considered spiritually suspect."
paraclete answered on 06/08/06:I find these propositions have elements of truth. There is nothing to suggest a violent nature in the writer | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 06/07/06 - Copy of May 6 Cable from Ambassador Khalilzad to Condi "Crime in Iraq is rated by the U.S. State Department as critical and will continue to get worse for the foreseeable future," the embassy in Baghdad reports in the cable, which was addressed to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice .
"Crime, terrorism, and warfare are a significant threat in all parts of Iraq. Active military operations are ongoing. The Department of State continues to strongly warn U.S. citizens against travel to Iraq, which remains very dangerous. ****Remnants of the former regime, transnational terrorists, criminal elements and numerous insurgent groups remain active.***
"Attacks against military and civilian targets continue throughout the country, including inside the international zone. These attacks have resulted in deaths and injuries of American citizens. Planned and random killings are common as are kidnappings for ransom and political reasons."
"Overall security in Iraq is worsening," the embassy reports....." edited for length only.
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Three years after the invasion of Iraq, and this is the truth about what is going on inside Iraq.
How can any sane person argue that the Iraq War has NOT been a collossal failure? A failure, in part, because of poor or no planning for after the highly tooted, "ahock and awe", the failure in not putting many more boots on the ground...... paraclete answered on 06/08/06:it's been a failure from the start, no dispute and whileever the US remains there the problem will contuinue. Why should Iraqi security forces die when they have teh US to do it for them? | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 06/06/06 - The UN is beyond contempt this is a followup to Clete's posting about the massacre of E.Timor police by their army while they were under the escort of UN "peace keepers".
It appears that the UN is conducting a cover up of the incident .
An email from the UN's deputy representative in Timor, Pakistani General Anis Bajwa, had been circulated to all staff, including employees evacuated to Australia, directing them not to assist AFP detectives investigating the worst atrocity since the violence of 1999.
First they denied that the e-mail existed ,but then when confronted with the evidence ,UN spokesman Bob Sullivan admitted it had been circulated .An now when cornered said the UN would now cooperate in the investigation.
This incident was not a mistake by a bunch of teenaged soldiers .A senior UN commander on the scene ignored the advice of his advisers. This caused an incident that threw an entire country into civil war. Then they tried to cover it up ;and when caught first denied it ,and finally cooperate when there is nowhere else to hide .If that aint the UN in a nutshell I don't know what is .
For the record ,the Aussie troops have rules of engagement that prohibit them from firing on looters. Therefore the looters and arsonists pretty much ignore the Aussie troops and go about their business. When all the dust is settled the second guessers will claim that the Aussies did not do enough to prevent looting ...but if they took action necessary to prevent it then the nay-sayers would simularily object to their strong-armed tactics (sound familiar ?)
It is reported that John Howard will go to Dili to see the sitaution first hand .I wish him a safe trip ;he is already having to defend his position in the media who started asking when the troops would leave shortly after they had landed . The unenvious fact is that Australia needs to be there until a stable governement is established but they also apparently need to walk a fine line so as not to be accused of manipulating East Timor's politics to solve the problem.
If Australia wants to get a grip on the security situation of E. Timor then they should abandon any illusion that the UN will act promptly on a resolution . They should instead get a coalition of the willing from ANZUS and wrest control away from the UN. paraclete answered on 06/07/06:don't advocate anarchy. The UN is a failed institution but useful. Australia doesn't want police responsibility in Timor Laste. The people there need to be taught to police themselves, but first they have to be taught to govern themselves. The problems there are racial, a clash between two ethnic groups.
The UN is a waste of time their policing activities are without power, better they go back to talking | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 06/06/06 - Got time for a small rant? So I'm sitting in my office, recovering (slowly) from a long night of tending to my sick wife, who was up all hours of the night with some stomach thing. My secretary beeps me to tell me my 9 o'clock appointment is here. Stifling the urge to swear out loud, I push my personal fatigue and concerns aside to tend to the business at hand.
In walks a young "gentleman" (a term I use very loosely), who happens to be African-American. I use that term simply because it's the current PC term of the hour. Whether or not the young man has ever even been to Africa is unknown to me, though after three minutes of conversation with him, I would be profoundly shocked if he could even locate Africa on a globe. But I digress. What really caught my attention was his T-shirt, which stated boldly with very well-done background graphics: "If you see the cops, warn a brother."
It took every ounce of self-control I possessed to not lay into this obviously misguided young man. By wearing statements such as these, aren't members of the black community advertising themselves as someone who NEEDS to be warned if the police are around? If I, a white American (oh, I could say "Irish-American," but never having lived in or even visited Ireland, that would be just silly) wore such a shirt or made such a statement, I would be immediately crucified by virtually everyone for being "racist." If I were conversing with this young man about the missing baby from our town (who has been found and is safe and healthy, thank God), and said something like "it was probably some black person that took her," would I not be labeled a racist? Sure I would, and rightfully so.
So is it just me, or does it seem like certain ethnic groups are their own worst enemies when it comes to race issues? In the circles where I live and have lived, which include military, blue collar, farming and ranching, law enforcement, faith communities, the "for profit" world, education, and institutes of higher learning, most of the white people I've ever talked to say that race is pretty much irrelevant to them, it's the quality of the person and their actions that matter. WHich sounds to me an awful lot like what Dr. King said in his most famous speech.
I personally think Dr. King would literally vomit if he saw how a great many black people were conducting themselves today while at the same time praising him and his actions, and continually shooting themselves in the foot.
Love me, hate me, disregard me. I don't care. That's what I have to say for the moment.
DK paraclete answered on 06/07/06:This is of course where this form of PC takes you, now if you could revise your thought pattern so any racial identification was removed from your thoughts there would be a big difference, but in your tale the racial overtones evident in culture make it inevitiable your response will be racial.
I can look at this from afar and so I don't identify those who are suntanned by some racial definition. I don't have to put someone in the arab box, or the abo box, or the PI box, or any other box. Because this is so I can say yours is a racist society because it maintains these distinctions however subtle. But if that person makes it plain by attitude, dress or whatever that they want to be treated differently, that is a different matter, it's not racism, it's elitism. | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 06/06/06 - Combating Racism Some real ugly stuff is going on here, so I have to speak up.
I have known many fine middle class black people, professionals and CHRISTIANS.....many black working class people, CHRISTIANS, all kinds of African Americans.
I have known poor black people and poor white people....it's about surviving for poor people no matter what color.....
jack paraclete answered on 06/07/06:That's true Jack and we should be asking what those fine upstanding Christians are doing about it? | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 06/06/06 - How does one prove a negative? Or rather, how does one prove that he/she is NOT what he/she is being accused of being, such as a racist, for example?
Would one mention the fact that one grew up in a small town that didn't even have paved roads until 1980, where one ran around all summer long with all the kids that were on their side of the tracks (literally)? Those kids being white, black, brown, and red? By the summer's end, we all looked pretty much alike, covered in head to toe with the red clay dust from the roads, smelling strangely similar to the catfish and crawdads we fished for endlessly.
Or would one mention later serving 12 years in America's armed forces, alongside black, white, hispanic, Native American, and Asian brothers? And doing so gladly, and with honor, not giving a rat's ass about the skin color or hometown of a brother, but whether or not he, too, would serve with honor and do his job as best he can?
Or would one mention dating lovely ladies from all across the racial spectrum, even though going to her parent's house for dinner was often interesting, because her mom and/or dad was PO'd that she brought a "foreigner" or a white boy home? Or would one mention cherishing the lovely relationship had with that women, despite her parent's problems?
Or would one mention later in life finally getting married, and adopting a Hispanic stepson with tears of joy and overwhelming love for him, and granting him all the full rights and privileges of the firstborn son?
Or would one mention working in a community agency, and being responsible for raising literally tens of thousands of dollars for scholarships and awareness programs to show minority students that despite what they may have been taught, they deserve all the same chances to succeed as anyone else?
Nah, never mind. It doesn't matter. I'm a white male, therefore I am an evil racist to some.
An accusation which is, of course, racism at it's most pure.
DK paraclete answered on 06/07/06:What you all tryin to prove here, Boy! All peoples is racist, givin the chance they will give preference to they's own. Should I not notice you got a sun tan. Question is; why you want to point it out? | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 06/04/06 - HELP IS REQUIRED !! A Talk at Lunch That Shifted the Stance on Iran
By HELENE COOPER and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: June 4, 2006
A discussion between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush two months ago led to an effort to devise a different policy toward Iran.
This article recently appeared in the N Y Times.
No general access was afforded.
Can you please help.
rolcam. paraclete answered on 06/04/06:http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/world/middleeast/04iran.html?ex=1149480000&en=2530209de35274c3&ei=5087%0A | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 06/02/06 - Queer Marriage
Hello wingers:
(1) Do you think an amendment to the Constitution to ban gay marriage is a good thing? No need to say why. If you say yes, I know why. Just as I’ll know why you don’t support it. (2) Do you think it will actually become part of the Constitution? (3) Is this an attempt to better our country or to pander to the religious right? (4) If it has no chance to become law, why do you think it is being proposed? (5) Do you know how an amendment becomes part of the Constitution?
excon
paraclete answered on 06/03/06:whatever happened to majority rules? and if the majority says no that's the way it should go, that's democracy, and if you want anything else you are undemocratic ~ think about it. So is the US becoming an un-democratic society? | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 06/02/06 - Sexual Bombshell Hits Washington It has been announced today from two reliable sources that George Bush is having a sexual affair with Condoleeza Rice.
I'm trying to remember, when was the last time a sitting president had a mistress. John F. Kennedy? paraclete answered on 06/03/06:perhaps this will clarify the picture for you
http://www.culturekitchen.com/archives/000647.html | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 06/01/06 - Marines at Haditha--by someone who was there A reporter's shock at the Haditha allegations
By Arwa Damon
CNN
Wednesday, May 31, 2006; Posted: 9:02 p.m. EDT (01:02 GMT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- It actually took me a while to put all the pieces together -- that I know these guys, the U.S. Marines at the heart of the alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians in Haditha.
I don't know why it didn't register with me until now. It was only after scrolling through the tapes that we shot in Haditha last fall, and I found footage of some of the officers that had been relieved of their command, that it hit me.
I know the Marines that were operating in western al Anbar, from Husayba all the way to Haditha. I went on countless operations in 2005 up and down the Euphrates River Valley. I was pinned on rooftops with them in Ubeydi for hours taking incoming fire, and I've seen them not fire a shot back because they did not have positive identification on a target.
I saw their horror when they thought that they finally had identified their target, fired a tank round that went through a wall and into a house filled with civilians. They then rushed to help the wounded -- remarkably no one was killed.
I was with them in Husayba as they went house to house in an area where insurgents would booby-trap doors, or lie in wait behind closed doors with an AK-47, basically on suicide missions, just waiting for the Marines to come through and open fire. There were civilians in the city as well, and the Marines were always keenly aware of that fact. How they didn't fire at shadows, not knowing what was waiting in each house, I don't know. But they didn't.
And I was with them in Haditha, a month before the alleged killings last November of some 24 Iraqi civilians.
I'm told that investigators now strongly suspect a rampage by a small number of Marines who snapped after one of their own was killed by a roadside bomb.
Haditha was full of IEDs. It seemed they were everywhere, like a minefield. In fact, the number of times that we were told that we were standing right on top of an IED minutes before it was found turned into a dark joke between my CNN team and me.
In fact, when we initially left to link up with the company that we were meant to be embedded with, the Humvee that I was in was hit by an IED. Another 2 inches and we would have been killed. Thankfully, no one was injured.
We missed the beginning of the operation, and ended up entering Haditha that evening. The city was empty of insurgents, or they had gone into hiding as they so often do, blending with the civilian population, waiting for U.S. and Iraqi forces to sweep through and then popping up again.
But this time, after this operation, the Marines and the Iraqi Army were not going to pull out, they were going to set up fixed bases.
Now, all these months later, while watching the tapes, I found a walk and talk with one of the company commanders that was relieved of his duty as a result of the Haditha probe.
After being hit by an IED, his men were searching the area and found a massive weapons cache in a mosque. Although it wasn't his company that we were embedded with, the Marines had taken me to the mosque so we could get footage of the cache.
And so began the e-mails and phone calls between myself and my two other CNN crew members, Jennifer Eccleston and Gabe Ramirez: Do you remember when we were talking with the battalion commander and his intel guy right outside the school and then half an hour later they found an IED in that spot? Do you remember when we were sitting chatting with them at the school? And all the other "do you remember whens."
There was also -- can you believe it? -- the allegations of the Haditha probe.
A little dose of reality to mix with the specualtion and rhetoric. Wait to pass judgement, please.
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Words of wisdom from a CNN reporter? I do believe I might faint....
DK paraclete answered on 06/02/06:why do nice people do bad things, because they are placed in impossible situations. Any one of us might react and lash out when attacked particularly if we are attacked frequently. It doesn't excuse the slaughter of non combatants whether you know the perps or not | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 06/01/06 - ***POP QUIZ*** This is a True of False Quiz constructed by Paul Cummins. Ready, Begin:rue or false:
1. Iraq's reconstruction -- as promised before the U.S. invasion -- has been paid for with Iraq's oil reserves...
2. Iraq's weapons of mass destruction posed an imminent mushroom-cloud threat to the U.S.A...
3. The U.S. invasion of Iraq was greeted by cheering Iraqis...
4. Lucrative no-competitive, no-bid contracts are a responsible way to do business...
5. Torture is an effective way to gain essential information and win international admiration...
6. Tax cuts for the affluent are an effective way to fund wartime expenses...
7. Expenses and debts can be increased indefinitely without worrying about revenue...
8. It is the responsibility of tomorrow's children to pay for the debts of today's adults...
9. The president of the U.S. should not feel constrained by the Constitution if he feels that it need not apply to certain situations that he feels warrant circumventing the Constitution...
10. To combat terrorism, the president of the U.S. has the sole and unquestionable power to seize an American citizen on U.S. soil, send him off to prison and hold him there without evidence or charge indefinitely...
11. Spending $186 million dollars a day in Iraq is a good investment for the future of the U.S.
12. Global warming is just a theory which we don't need to take seriously...
13. Increased pollution and climate changing emissions are not sufficient reasons to restrict the profits of coal-producing plants...
14. Nuclear proliferation is not a danger the U.S. needs to be very concerned about...
15. Corporate CEOs have gotten so good they warrant their current $450:1 ratio to workers pay -- up from 43.1 thirty years ago.
16. The U.S. decision to attack Iraq was justified because God told George W. Bush to do so.
How did you score? How does America?
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What was your score? paraclete answered on 06/01/06:False x 16. America scores badly, flunked, brain dead, what can I say, was the poll rigged? was American set up to fail? | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 05/30/06 - The Comeback Kid As Democrats worry about their 2008 chances, out of the wilderness comes a stranger to save them. Wait a minute. That’s no stranger. that’s . . . Al Gore!?!
Seems several of us are betting on Gore in ང, including me. What say you? Forget the President and Secretary-General Clinton pair possibility, what about another Clinton-Gore ticket, president and vice president of the world? paraclete answered on 05/31/06:who is that masked man? why it's Zoro | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 05/28/06 - Old felonious excon
Hello nannystaters:
As many of you know, I participate in on-line poker. As of June 7, my poker playing activities will become a felony. The head of the state gambling commission, however, said that it is unlikely that individual gamblers will be targeted. Yeah right!
(1) Do you believe the head gambling cop? (2) Why would they spend the time to make gambling a felony if they had no intention of enforcing it? (3) Isn't making law that they don't enforce and have no intention of enforcing, a problem? (4) Should I quit? (5) Do you want your cops spending time doing this kind of enforcement?
excon
PS> NO, I ain't gonna quit. And YES, because of that decision, I know the Wolverine thinks I should go to jail. (6) Do you?
paraclete answered on 05/29/06:AH THE CRIMINAL MIND, LAW, WHAT LAW? THEY CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO! | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 05/27/06 - My dead horse ain't so dead
Hello drugwarriors:
Upon further review, the recent study by Dr. Donald Tashkin of UCLA goes much further in suggesting that THC inhibits the growth of cancer cells, than I had previously gathered.
As a drugwarrior, he said of the study, "Our major hypothesis, was that heavy, long-term use of marijuana will increase the risk of lung and upper-airways cancers." However, Tashkin concluded, "we failed to observe a positive association of marijuana use and lung, and upper-airway cancers."
He goes on, “it would be difficult to extract from these data the conclusion that marijuana is protective against lung cancer. But that is not an unreasonable hypothesis."
This is big. THC could be the cure for cancer!!! If you were diagnosed with inoperable cancer, would you try pot?
excon
paraclete answered on 05/29/06:what part of hypothesis don't you understand, saying it doesn't make it so, it just leaves it in the "we failed to observe a positive association of marijuana use and lung, and upper-airway cancers." department, which is a long way from a cure for cancer or even a reason to investigate it.
| | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 05/26/06 - Shots Fired!! Latest dirty trick by the Bush Crime Family to stir up fear?
What's next, raising the danger level to orange...red? Do they even have that stupid color coded warning system?
No wonder shots fired happened today. After last night's press conference with Tony Blair, Bush needed a diversion.
paraclete answered on 05/27/06:You think you got problems have alook at what is happening in DILI, EAST TIMOR | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 05/23/06 - Solution to Gitmo
Hello:
Here's a solution to Gitmo that I would approve of. Even the Wolverine might like it.
Just open the doors. Let Castro deal with them.
excon
PS> Viva La Marielitos
paraclete answered on 05/24/06:and any enemy of the US is my friend. Not the best idea you have had, ex | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 05/24/06 - Is this where kid gloves policies gets you? Recent violence in Australian indigenous communities has resulted in the suggestion that the military be used to supplement the overwelmed police force and fight indigenous gangs destroying the largest indigenous community in Australia's Northern Territory
Hundreds are homeless and yet the Governemnt sits on it's hands and calls for conferences.
Army won't fight indigenous violence
Defence Minister Brendan Nelson has ruled out sending in the army to help restore law and order to indigenous communities plagued by violence.
Labor Party president Warren Mundine(indigenous) on Sunday said using the military to address the "national disaster" of child abuse and domestic violence in some remote communities should not be ruled out.
But Dr Nelson said the idea was "seriously misguided".
"The army is not the solution," he told ABC radio.
"It's leadership from Aboriginal people themselves, supported by state and territory and commonwealth governments and also, in my opinion, changes to the way in which we deliver financial support to Aboriginal people.
"To suggest ... sending the army into remote Aboriginal communities is in any way the solution might be well-intentioned, but is seriously misguided."
Substance abuse and violence in the Aboriginal community made headlines last week when Northern Territory crown prosecutor Nanette Rogers went public with her concerns about how the legal system was dealing with the problems.
In the past army engineering and other units have aided Aboriginal communities with civil aid projects, which have helped in their own training.
© 2006
paraclete answered on 05/24/06:undoubtedly this is where appeasment takes you. We even have the Church suggesting the Government should apologise for the situation. When indigenous peoples start to take responsibility for their own circumstances we will see progress. Traditional law hasn't stopped the violence and white man's law stands idle. This situation has arisen when petrol sniffing has been effectively addressed, meaning when they are not off their face, they get off their face, there being nothing useful to do.
Send in the army to restore order and act as peace keepers between the factions. A shoot to kill policy will soon stop the nonsence | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 05/22/06 - Merciary Army? NEW YORK "Little known to the American public, there are some 50,000 private contractors in Iraq, providing support for the U.S. military, among other activities. So why not go all the way, hints Ted Koppel in a New York Times op-ed on Monday, and form a real "mercenary army"?
Such a move involving what he calls "latter-day Hessians" would represent, he writes, "the inevitable response of a market economy to a host of seemingly intractable public policy and security problems."
The issue is raised by our "over-extended military" and inability of the United Nations to form adequate peace forces. Meanwhile, Americans business interests grow ever more active abroad in dangerous spots.
"Just as the all-volunteer military relieved the government of much of the political pressure that had accompanied the draft, so a rent-a-force, harnessing the privilege of every putative warrior to hire himself out for more than he could ever make in the direct service of Uncle Sam, might relieve us of an array of current political pressures," Koppel explains, tongue possibly in cheek."
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What about a merciary army? paraclete answered on 05/22/06:can you trust them? | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 05/21/06 - Dead Soldiers
Hello citizens:
In Vietnam, when they reported the American dead, as a feel good measure (because it was probably a lie), they at least reported a decisively larger number of enemy dead. Why aren’t they doing that in Iraq?
excon
paraclete answered on 05/21/06:Because they are not very successful in creating enemy casualities, note the press on Afganistan in recent days, large numbers of enemy casualities | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 05/19/06 - The Prince of Pot
Hello Drugwarriors:
Marc Emery, a Canadian citizen, is facing extradition to the United States, as a drug kingpin. He faces the death penalty if the DEA gets their hands on him. Or, if they decide to be nice to him, he'll serve 27 years in the slam because of mandatory minimums.
In Canada, however, no one has ever been sentenced to jail for selling seeds, and only two people have ever been fined. Marc in 1996 and 1998; and Ian Hunter, fined $200 in the year 2000.
Oh yeah, he only sells seeds. He’s made no money personally, and he gave all the profits from his seed business to the cause of legalizing marijuana. He’s really a pot activist - not a drug dealer. He lives in an apartment and drives a leased car.
Should we kill him?
excon
paraclete answered on 05/21/06:he only sells the seeds of destruction. What's the difference, ex, whether he sells the seeds or sells the weed, he is a drug dealer and there should only be one penelty for those people. The Canadians are weak, but with a new government that might change and their slack ways may be overturned | | Question/Answer | | CeeBee2 asked on 05/21/06 - Ethnic cleansing in Iraq? ZNet | Iraq
Iraq Is Disintegrating
As ethnic cleansing takes hold across central Iraq, there is an exodus of people fleeing for their lives as sectarian assassins and death squads hunt them down.
by Patrick Cockburn ; May 20, 2006
Khanaqin, North-East Iraq. The state of Iraq now resembles Bosnia at the height of the fighting in the 1990s when each community fled to places where its members were a majority and were able to defend themselves. "Be gone by evening prayers or we will kill you," warned one of four men who called at the house of Leila Mohammed, a pregnant mother of three children in the city of Baquba, in Diyala province north-east of Baghdad. He offered chocolate to one of her children to try to find out the names of the men in the family.
Mrs Mohammed is a Kurd and a Shia in Baquba, which has a majority of Sunni Arabs. Her husband, Ahmed, who traded fruit in the local market, said: "They threatened the Kurds and the Shia and told them to get out. Later I went back to try to get our furniture but there was too much shooting and I was trapped in our house. I came away with nothing." He and his wife now live with nine other relatives in a three-room hovel in Khanaqin.
The same pattern of intimidation, flight and death is being repeated in mixed provinces all over Iraq. By now Iraqis do not have to be reminded of the consequences of ignoring threats.
In Baquba, with a population of 350,000, gunmen last week ordered people off a bus, separated the men from the women and shot dead 11 of them. Not far away police found the mutilated body of a kidnapped six-year-old boy for whom a ransom had already been paid.
The sectarian warfare in Baghdad is sparsely reported but the provinces around the capital are now so dangerous for reporters that they seldom, if ever, go there, except as embeds with US troops. Two months ago in Mosul, I met an Iraqi army captain from Diyala who said Sunni and Shia were slaughtering each other in his home province. "Whoever is in a minority runs," he said. "If forces are more equal they fight it out."
It was impossible to travel to Baquba, the capital of Diyala, from Baghdad without extreme danger of being killed on the road. But I thought that if I took the road from Kurdistan leading south, kept close to the Iranian border and stayed in Kurdish-controlled territory I could reach Khanaqin, a town of 75,000 people in eastern Diyala. If what the army captain said about the killings and mass flight was true then there were bound to be refugees who had reached there.
I thought it was too dangerous to go beyond the town into the Arab part of Diyala province, once famous for its fruit, since it is largely under insurgent control. But, as I had hoped, it was possible to talk to Kurds who had sought refuge in Khanaqin over the past month.
Salam Hussein Rostam, a police lieutenant in charge of registering and investigating people arriving in terror from all over Iraq, gestured to an enormous file of paper beside him. "I've received 200 families recently, most of them in the last week," he said. This means that about one thousand people have sought refuge in one small town. Lt Rostam said that the refugees were coming from all over Iraq. In some cases they had left not because they were threatened with death but because they were fired from their jobs for belonging to the wrong community. "I know of two health workers from Baghdad who were sacked simply because they were Kurds and not Shia," he said.
This was probably because the Health Ministry in Baghdad is controlled by the party of Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia cleric.
The flight of the middle class started about six months after the invasion in 2003 as it became clear Iraq was becoming more, not less, violent. They moved to Jordan, Syria and Egypt. The suicide bombing campaign was largely directed against Shias who only began to retaliate after they had taken over the government in May last year. Interior Ministry forces arrested, tortured and killed Sunnis.
But a decisive step towards sectarian civil war took place when the Shia Al-Askari shrine in Samarra was blown up on 22 February this year. Some 1,300 Sunni were killed in retaliation.
Kadm Darwish Ali, a policeman from Baquba and now also a refugee, said: "Everything got worse after Samarra. I had been threatened with death before but now I felt every time I appeared in the street I was likely to die."
Every community has its atrocity stories. The cousin of a friend was a Sunni Arab who worked in the wholly Shia district of Qadamiyah in west Baghdad. One day last month he disappeared. Three days later his body was discovered on a rubbish dump in another Shia district. "His face was so badly mutilated," said my friend, that "we only knew it was him from a wart on his arm."
Since the destruction of the mosque in Samarra sectarian warfare has broken out in every Iraqi city where there is a mixed population. In many cases the minority is too small to stand and fight. Sunnis have been fleeing Basra after a series of killings. Christians are being eliminated in Mosul in the north. Shias are being killed or driven out of cities and towns north of Baghdad such as Baquba or Samarra itself.
Dujail, 40 miles north of Baghdad, is the Shia village where Saddam Hussein carrying out a judicial massacre, killing 148 people after an attempt to assassinate him in 1982. He is on trial for the killings. The villagers are now paying a terrible price for giving evidence at his trial.
In the past few months Sunni insurgents have been stopping them at an improvised checkpoint on the road to Baghdad. Masked gunmen glance at their identity cards and if under place of birth is written "Dujail" they kill them. So far 20 villagers have been murdered and 20 have disappeared.
*************************
Now what should the U.S. do? paraclete answered on 05/21/06:same solution they had for Bosnia, bomb the offenders untill they decide it's too costly to continue. The problem here is there is no representative government such as there was in Serbia, so if you bomb the sunni towns, you also bomb those who are being oppressed. The real answer is to forget this myth of a federal Iraq and allow it to be divided as it should have been from the start. To continue on the current path is to invite a civil war. But in reality the US can do little as they have ceded control to the Iraqi government | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 05/19/06 - BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS Jesus with erection' ignites outrage
Student newspaper publishes drawings in response to Muhammad 'toons
Posted: April 26, 2006
5:00 p.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
A Catholic activist organization has written to Oregon's governor and state lawmakers to protest a University of Oregon student newspaper for having published cartoons showing Jesus Christ naked and with an erection.
In its March edition, the Insurgent, an "alternative" student paper on the Eugene, Ore., campus printed 12 hand-drawn cartoons of Jesus as a response to rival paper the Commentator having published the controversial cartoons of Muhammad originally published in Europe that sparked Muslim riots worldwide. The Insurgent claimed it published the drawings to "provoke dialogue."
William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, said the university's president, Dave Frohnmayer, had been unresponsive to complaints about the drawings, so he had written to the governor, every state legislators and the chancellor of the Oregon University System, among others.
Student newspaper publishes drawings in response to "The March edition of the Insurgent ... was one of the most obscene assaults on Christianity I have ever seen," Donohue said in a statement. "To make sure that the persons I wrote to understand how vile this attack was, I sent a photocopy of the two most offensive graphics: one was a depiction of a naked Jesus on the cross with an erection; the other, titled 'Resurrection,' showed a naked Jesus kissing another naked man, both sporting erections."
Donohue also says there were other depictions of Jesus on the cross that were "so gratuitously offensive that only the most depraved would defend them." He also noted the paper published two commentaries attacking Catholicism.
"That all of this appeared in a student newspaper, during Lent, on the campus of a state institution, makes one wonder what is going on at the University of Oregon," added Donohue.
While not describing the more sexual drawings, the main student newspaper at the university, the Oregon Daily Emerald, also criticized the Insurgent.
"The Insurgent editorial indicates a desire to show Americans why the original cartoons were so offensive to the Muslim world," wrote the editor of the Emerald. "According to the editorial, 'What is "not a big deal" in the US (sic) is apparently a humongous big deal to others. Why should we assume it would not be?'
"However, printing home-grown cartoons depicting Jesus on a cross/pogo stick or Jesus on a cross/hangliding apparatus are not inflammatory in the same manner as the anti-Islam cartoons, and therefore fail to produce the intended empathy from Christians to Muslims."
Added the paper: "Unlike the Danish cartoons, the Insurgent drawings seem intended to simply incite controversy for controversy's sake rather than making specific social commentaries."
A spokesman for Frohnmayer contacted WorldNetDaily after press time to say that the university president had posted a statement regarding the controversy surrounding the cartoons:
"I share your concern about the offensive nature of the content contained within the publication.
"I understand why it may seem as if the University should have prevented publication or should take some action against those responsible for the publication. The Student Insurgent is not owned, controlled or published by the University of Oregon and is funded with student fees. Therefore, the University cannot exercise editorial control over its content.
"The best response to offensive speech often is more speech. ... I am strongly opposed to speech that makes individuals feel that they or their beliefs are unwelcome or belittled, and I can assure you I will use all permissible means to respond to publications such as the recent Insurgent."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Last year, UO's Programs Finance Committee decided to de-fund a conservative campus magazine because a transgendered student was offended - by rejecting the magazine's 21 year old mission statement.
On Tuesday, UO ruled against the students grievance filed against The Insurgent, saying it "did not practice discrimination" while affirming the statute on contributing to the "physical and cultural development of students." Any bets on whether or not UO's PFC will try to de-fund The Insurgent?
Compared to the Mohammed cartoons what's the point of this? What possible good might The Insurgent think would come out of publishing these images?
How does this aid in the "cultural and physical development of students" as required by UO's statutes on using student fees? Comments? paraclete answered on 05/20/06:All this proves is, as the Muslims say, Satan is alive and well and living in the United States.
I expect this University sees it'sself as a basion of liberal expression but such depiction is indefensible as it is intented not only to offend Christians but Muslims also. At what price do you alienate half the world's population in one stroke. I expect democracy will be defended here saying these students have a right to free expression, I think the price is too high
What does it profit a man,.....? | | Question/Answer | | labman asked on 05/19/06 - Priorities? Selected headlines from Reuters: Top Stories on My Yahoo:
US urged to close Guantanamo
N.Korea may be preparing missile launch: reports
Iran now enriching home processed uranium: source
Rebel attack downs key Colombia oil pipeline: army
Three senior Taliban captured in Afghan clashes
Egypt rejects US criticism over Nour case
Saddam Hussein novel hits stores in Japan
In the top story the UN is saying we are violating international law. I doubt Guantanamo is a pleasent place, but I wonder if it needs to be a high priority for the UN today. Does it violate international law to hijack an airliner filled with civilians and crash it into a building filled with more civilians? paraclete answered on 05/19/06:labman
not a single hijacker is in Guantanamo therefore 9/11 doesn't justify it's existence or the treatment of it's inmates | | Question/Answer | tomder55 asked on 05/17/06 - Is Ahmadinejad's letter to Bush a prelude to war?
Many Mid East observers think so. There are passages in Hadith regarding preludes to war .Muhammad gave instructions to followers as they engage in "holy war" against "those who disbelieve in Allah." Accordingly a series of offers should be made to "enemies" to embrace Islam, or at least accept Islamic rule, and if they are rejected, "seek Allah's help and fight them." [Sahih Muslim Book 019, Number 4294]
Apparently his letter was not so much a concern about the nuclear impasse as much as an invitation to Islam to President Bush.
"The letter was an invitation to monotheism and justice, which are common to all divine prophets. If the call is responded positively, there will be no more problems to be solved," added the president.
The president said that the letter actually contained a clear message of invitation to human beliefs, adding that its response will determine the future....
(The students in Jakarta went wild over him )
From the text of his letter to Bush :
Do you not think that if all of us come to believe in and abide by these principles, that is, monotheism, worship of God, justice, respect for the dignity of man, belief in the Last Day, we can overcome the present problems of the world – that are the result of disobedience to the Almighty and the teachings of prophets – and improve our performance? Do you not think that belief in these principles promotes and guarantees peace, friendship and justice? Do you not think that the aforementioned written or unwritten principles are universally respected? Will you not accept this invitation? That is, a genuine return to the teachings of prophets, to monotheism and justice, to preserve human dignity and obedience to the Almighty and His prophets? Mr President, History tells us that repressive and cruel governments do not survive.
Traditional Muslim belief it is only Islam that guarantees "monotheism, worship of God, justice, respect for the dignity of man, belief in the Last Day."
So is he a wild eyed believer trying to bring about a end-game battle between Islam and the West.... or is this a bluff of some kind ? Either way we should be prepared for the worse .
paraclete answered on 05/17/06:isn't this a repost of an earlier post. I know things are slack but do we have to recycle posts
Iran doesn't want war any more than any other country but they don't want interference in their affairs either | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 05/15/06 - National Guard to shoot Mexicans?? Are the National Guard guys deployed to the US Mexico boarder going to shoot the illegals?
Or, is this just to mollify the radical right who have threatened to stay home on election day because Bush hasn't implemented amy of their favorite causes....gay marriage amendment, repeal abortion amendment, immigration, etc....
Hey, why don't Cubans have to go back. oh yeah, Bush buying Cuban-Hispanic votes in Florida. Yeah, yeah, that's right. paraclete answered on 05/17/06:what's a National Guard for if it isn't to guard the nation? | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 05/16/06 - Guard Too Expensive To Use for Boarder Work-Chertoff "In December of 2005, Fox News talking head Bill O’Reilly floated an unlikely — even brash — idea to the Homeland Security secretary to seal off the porous southwest border.
“Why don’t you put the National Guard on the border to back up the border patrol and stop the bleeding, and then start to increase the Border Patrol, the high-tech and all of that?” O’Reilly asked.
Michael Chertoff, in those relatively calmer days before mass pro-immigration rallies, heated immigration reform politics in the Senate and cellar-dwelling opinion polls for President Bush, dismissed the idea out of hand.
“Well, the National Guard is really, first of all, [ONE]*not trained* for that mission,” Chertoff told O’Reilly. “I mean, the fact of the matter is the border is a special place. There are special challenges that are faced there.”
Chertoff added that that it would take a [TWO]*huge amount of National Guard troops*, that they would need new training. But couldn’t the National Guard pull it off, O’Reilly asked?
“I think it would be a [THREE]*horribly over-expensive* and very difficult way to manage this problem,” Chertoff said. “Unless you would be prepared to leave those people in the National Guard day and night for month after month after month, you would eventually have to come to grips with the challenge in a more comprehensive way.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ paraclete answered on 05/17/06:I think what you are saying here is the 'Guard" are too special to be used for such dirty work, and as it's comprised of good ole boys they just may react badly | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 05/17/06 - A picture's worth a thousand words? http://network.news.com.au/image/0,10114,5154793,00.jpg paraclete answered on 05/17/06:Little John and some new recruits | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 05/13/06 - Bush's erratic behaviour explained? GOP said to be "very worried!"
All the presidents' minds
By ALEX MASSIE IN WASHINGTON
IT IS as demanding and stressful a job as any, making extraordinary demands upon the 42 men who have held the post.
Lyndon Johnson complained that being president of the United States was an "unrelenting business" in which work was "always there to be done", to the point where "it became a question of how much the physical constitution could take".
Now, researchers writing in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease have concluded that half the presidents in US history suffered from mental illness.
Three professors of psychiatry at the prestigious Duke University in North Carolina analysed presidential biographies and other historical records before concluding that
18 of the 37 presidents who served between 1776 and 1974 suffered from psychiatric disorders.
Of those 18, at least ten suffered psychiatric problems while in office which, more often than not, may have affected their performance in the job. The sole exception cited by the Duke psychiatrists was Teddy Roosevelt, whose bipolar disorder seems not to have hampered his muscular approach to the presidency.
The pattern of poor mental health runs from the founding fathers to Richard Nixon. John Adams, the second president, suffered from depression while his successor, Thomas Jefferson, was hampered by social phobia.
Depression was the most common diagnosis, occurring in 24 per cent of cases, followed by anxiety (8 per cent), bipolar disorder (8 per cent) and alcoholism (8 per cent). Other depressives included Dwight Eisenhower, Rutherford Hayes, James Madison, James Garfield and John Quincy Adams.
Of Woodrow Wilson, the researchers noted: "The development of paranoia and other mental changes, which could have amplified his rigidity of character, perhaps prevented him from taking advantage of his opportunities as president of the world's most powerful country after the First World War."
Wilson's predecessor, William Taft, was accused by one biographer of losing interest in the presidency. His administration was characterised as one of "drift, drift, drift - little attempted, nothing done". The professors say Taft "coped with the stress of the presidency by overeating to the point of massive obesity, and obstructive sleep apnoea meant that he probably could not give full attention to the job".
However they note that "no national calamities appear to have occurred due to presidential mental illness".
Although the research further dents the already tarnished notion of presidential omnipotence, the researchers argue that publicising the psychiatric problems suffered by presidents is beneficial. "Presidents are seen to be human, and if so many of them have a major psychiatric disorder, it could at least lessen the long-standing stigma toward mental illness," they argue.
Michael Kazin, professor of history at Georgetown University in Washington, said: "There are certain aspects of any powerful politician's career which make it quite rational for a president to be mentally troubled."
===
Should sitting presidents be subject to monthly psychiatric evaluation to ensure that they are sane and not behaving strangely, as the present incumbent is doing?
paraclete answered on 05/14/06:what can one say George Bush is in good company? | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 05/12/06 - A proposed response to Ahmadinejad's letter. The following is my proposal of how Bush should respond to the rediculous letter sent by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
---------------------
The White House
Oval Office
From The Desk of George W. Bush
Dear President Ahmadinejad:
I was delighted to read your recent letter. In fact, my whole Administration was smiling for days afterwards… mostly because they couldn’t stop laughing. But I felt that, given your attempt at diplomatic outreach, your letter deserves an appropriate response.
First of all, I find it interesting that you quote the teachings of Jesus Christ, considering that you have publicly stated on any number of occasions that you would like nothing better than to destroy anyone who doesn’t follow the Islamic religion, and specifically your particular branch of Shia. This, of course, includes the USA, Israel, and most of Europe.
You question my putting troops in harm’s way in Iraq, but ignore the fact that your government has been putting its troops in harms way against the Iraqi military for decades. Your government saw Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as a threat to your sovereignty, reacted to that perceived threat with military action, and sent troops to fight against the Iraqi military. The only difference between your countries actions and mine is that we beat the Iraqi military in a matter of weeks, whereas your soldiers simply died in combat, with no real resolution to the conflict.
You question why I would send troops against Saddam Hussein’s regime based on WMDs that you claim did not exist. But didn’t Saddam Hussein gas your troops with chemical weapons during the 1980’s? Don’t those constitute weapons of mass destruction? How can you, as the leader of the Iranian people who suffered most of all from Saddam Hussein’s illegal weapons programs, ask why I would send troops to stop those illegal weapons from being used or given to others who would use them against civilians.
Next, you ask about the existence of Israel and question the events of the Holocaust. I wonder how anyone who claims to be a “teacher” could possibly wonder whether the Holocaust took place or not. Most people claiming to be teachers know how to read, and the amount of evidence available to the public to read is huge. The Holocaust is by far the most documented crime in history, with witnesses from both the victims and the perpetrators having given testimony on the subject. But, of course, actually studying the subject of the holocaust would take an ability to read, and given the lack of literacy I found in your letter, I question your ability to read at all, much less understand the intricacies of researching historical fact.
Furthermore, the Jews did not steal the land of Israel from the Palestinian people. They WERE the Palestinian people. They were the ones called “Palestinians” prior to 1948. The ones who you now refer to as “Palestinians” were actually Jordanians. It wasn’t until the 1950s that the term Palestinian was coined to refer to the indigenous Jordanians living there. Furthermore, the land had belonged to the Jewish people for approximately 3,200 years before it was claimed by the Jordanians. They had lived there all that time in an unbroken string, with different governments, regimes and rulers over them. They didn’t steal anything from the so-called Palestinian people.
Finally, it should be noted that Israel did not simply come into existence. The establishment of the Jewish State of Israel was voted on in the United Nations by representatives of all its member nations. The Muslim community decided that they did not like this turn of events and promptly attacked Israel trying to steal the land that rightfully belonged to them. That attack failed, as did all subsequent attacks. Those subsequent attacks by the Muslim community directly resulted in the increase in Israel’s size to its post 1967 borders. And if Israel had actually annexed the West Bank and Gaza Strip into the sovereign borders of Israel and expel the Muslims from the area, none of the violence that has followed since would have occurred. But Moshe Dayan was overly sensitive in his dealing with the Muslim world, and chose to instead to invite them back to live in peace and harmony alongside the Jews. The West Bank and Gaza, instead of becoming part of Israel, were labeled “occupied territories”, and eventually “illegally occupied territories”, though there was nothing illegal about it.
I find it interesting that you quote Jesus Christ with such facility, but ignore the fact that Jesus was a Jew who lived and died in the Land of Israel, further proving that the land belonged to the Jews.
You also questioned the treatment of POWs being held in Guantanimo Bay and Abu Ghraib in your letter. However, I must point out that Iran is not exactly known for the soft-handedness of the treatment of its prisoners. For that matter, your country’s entire human rights record is a giant mess. According to the U.S. Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights:
Prison conditions in the country [Iran] were poor. Many prisoners were held in solitary confinement or denied adequate food or medical care to force confessions. After its 2003 visit, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions reported that "for the first time since its establishment, [the working group] has been confronted with a strategy of widespread use of solitary confinement for its own sake and not for traditional disciplinary purposes." The working group described Sector 209 of Evin prison as a "prison within a prison," designed for the "systematic, large-scale use of absolute solitary confinement, frequently for long periods."
By contrast, CBS News’ Rosa Hwang did a story about Camp Delta in Guantanimo Bay in which she said the following:
What we saw at Camp Delta seemed hardly a gulag. The prisoners appeared to be well fed and kept in quarters typical of any medium- to maximum-security U.S. prison. The cells are sparse, yet neat. The guard forces are serious, yet professional.
The detainees seemed to spend most of their time battling the oppressive heat, dust and bugs, as opposed to battling allegedly abusive guards… For the most part, they regarded us with mild curiosity.
On the topic of supposed secret “black” prisons run by the USA, the State Department’s report says this about Iran:
The UNSR reported that much of the prisoner abuse occurred in unofficial detention centers run by unofficial intelligence services and the military. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention raised this issue with the country's Article 90 parliamentary commission during its 2003 visit, generating a commission inquiry that reportedly confirmed the existence of numerous unofficial prisons.
Furthermore, I would point out to you that the actual existence of any such “black” prisons has been questioned recently in the media, as opposed to your secret prisons which have been confirmed to exist.
In your letter, you asked why the international community is so afraid of Iran developing nuclear technology. The answer to that, Mr. President, can be found in your own rhetoric. No other nation that capable of developing nuclear technology has threatened to destroy a sovereign nation that its President happens to disagree with. No nation besides Iran has offered to sell its nuclear secrets to the Sudanese government, one of the most corrupt and brutal governments in the entire world. No other nation with developing nuclear ambitions has declared a holy war against the rest of the world’s religions. We are worried about you, Mr. President, and the rhetoric of hate that you continue to spout. When people who hate as much as you do get their hands on big bombs, they tend to go off, and we would rather not have any nuclear weapons go off any time soon.
And finally, you argued that Democracy and capitalism are dead, but that the law of G-d continues to survive and thrive. I happen to agree with you that the Law of G-d is still alive and well. That Law is a Law of love, charity, responsibility and human decency. Unfortunately, that is not the Law that you practice. The Law that you practice is one of hatred, bigotry, oppression, torture, and the suppression of the human spirit of growth. Those are very different values from the ones that I learned in Sunday School. Furthermore, if Democracy is dead, why is it that so many people are trying to get into the United States, both legally and illegally. I may differ with some lawmakers on how to handle the matter of illegal immigration, but the fact is that people are coming to the United States in droves to experience our way of life. Iran’s immigration rate is -0.48%. That’s negative point five percent. People are trying to get OUT of Iran. Iran has 40% of its population living below the poverty line, 11% unemployment and 16% inflation. I think that a comparison of the USA’s economic strength and Democratic way of life verses the Iranian theocratic system speaks for itself.
Despite our disagreements, I am happy that you decided to open communications between our two countries. I hope that this will be only the first step in an open dialogue and that we can move forward together in the spirit of friendship and international cooperation. In fact, in the spirit of friendship, Vice President Cheney has asked me to extend a personal and open invitation to you to join him quail hunting some afternoon.
With deepest respect,
George W. Bush
President of the Unites States of America
---------------------
What do you think?
Elliot paraclete answered on 05/13/06:A little long and definately too sarcasic, what could be described as self serving thus loosing the opportunity for dialogue. I think the last paragraph minus the veiled threat implied by the reference to Cheney is all that is needed. | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 05/12/06 - Hamas
Hello Laydownforislamers:
Do you think your tax dollars should go to feed Hamas led hungry Palestinians? If yes, do you think any of that money will be spent on weapons that will be used on Israel, our ally? Or maybe even, God forbid, us?
Against the backdrop of Ahmadinejad's letter this week and his constant threats against the US and its allies in recent weeks and months, it is clear that Iran perceives itself as being in a state of active war against the US. It is also a fact that Hamas is now an official client of Tehran.
Indeed, even before Hamas subordinated itself to Tehran, the movement was in a declared state of war against America. On December 17, 2001, Hamas published a joint declaration with the Islamic Jihad in which it declared, "Americans are the enemies of the Palestinian people," and Americans "are a target for future attacks."
The Bush administration just pledged $10 million in medical assistance to Hamas. Every penny of ours that is transferred in "direct aid" to the Palestinians is money that will prevent Hamas from failing.
Do I feel for starving children around the world? Sure, but I feel less about the children of our enemy. You?
excon
paraclete answered on 05/13/06:I agree with your administration on this one, in no way should you support an enemy regime and the recent announcement of medical aid is plain stupid because it sends mixed signals. Tehran has undertaken to help them, their allegience can't be bought so let Tehran do it and don't stand in the way. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 05/11/06 - The Last Helicopter To hear Mr. Abbasi tell it the entire recent history of the U.S. could be narrated with the help of the image of "the last helicopter." It was that image in Saigon that concluded the Vietnam War under Gerald Ford. Jimmy Carter had five helicopters fleeing from the Iranian desert, leaving behind the charred corpses of eight American soldiers. Under Ronald Reagan the helicopters carried the corpses of 241 Marines murdered in their sleep in a Hezbollah suicide attack. Under the first President Bush, the helicopter flew from Safwan, in southern Iraq, with Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf aboard, leaving behind Saddam Hussein's generals, who could not believe why they had been allowed live to fight their domestic foes, and America, another day. Bill Clinton's helicopter was a Black Hawk, downed in Mogadishu and delivering 16 American soldiers into the hands of a murderous crowd.
According to this theory, President George W. Bush is an "aberration," a leader out of sync with his nation's character and no more than a brief nightmare for those who oppose the creation of an "American Middle East." Messrs. Abbasi and Ahmadinejad have concluded that there will be no helicopter as long as George W. Bush is in the White House. But they believe that whoever succeeds him, Democrat or Republican, will revive the helicopter image to extricate the U.S. from a complex situation that few Americans appear to understand.
read the rest here
Are the Iranians right ? Do they just have to wait out Bush's term and then the US will go back to pre-9/11 business as usual ? Another question that might be asked is what happens to the countries left behind by those 'fleeing 'American Helicopters ?
for the record ;I happen to agree with Taheri that the American resolve is different than it was before 9-11. From all that I have observed ,the US is planning on being in the middle of the ummah for the long haul .This month's 'Atlantic Monthly' details the " Forward Operating Bases"(FOBs) that have been constructed in Iraq.(occupants affectionately called 'FOBBITS' .
They are away from the population centers but close enough to be there when the Iraqi army needs support (until they have air power they will need our logistic support ) . Close enough to the Iran and Syrian borders to monitor their interferance in internal Iraqi affairs .
Yes ,there will be a pull out ,and it will be pretty soon . But it will not be a complete withdrawal . Like many other allies we will garrison probably around 30 - 50,000 there .
Reshaping the Middle east is a long term policy . If we elect a short-sighted leader then all the work Bush has done will be for naught. With the current policy ,Iran is in a position where change is inevidible. They see American troops on 2 of their borders ,and nations in some degree of alliance with the US on their remaining borders .Waiting for the last helicopter to leave may be their only viable strategy .
paraclete answered on 05/12/06:No helicopters for Bush? How many helicopters have been downed in Iraq but the Bush helicopter was the one he flew in on to announce Mission Accomplished, the greatest lie of his presidency and perhaps his lasting legacy | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 05/12/06 - America is now a Plutocracy AMERICA IS NOW... A PLUTOCRACY
The BushCrimeFamily, Cheney, NeoCon PLUTOCRACY. Government by the Millionaire Class
It was just all too easy to subvert our Republic. paraclete answered on 05/12/06:and you think this is new | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 05/11/06 - With all the flair of George Bush, Scotland gives a luncheon for a man who didn't attend! Bill Clinton missed out on the meal itself, but after his round of golf gave an 80-minute speech on his vision for the world in the 21st century.
No such thing as a free lunch when taxpayer helps pick up tab for Bill
RHIANNON EDWARD
* Taxpayers foot the bill for Clinton visit to Scotland
* Lunch bill comes when Executive claims to have 'no money available'
* Bill Clinton did not actually attend meal as he was playing golf
Key quote "That money would have been far better spent in Malawi, rather than on a booze-up for members of the Executive. They have lost all sense of priority. If people want to have lunch with Bill Clinton, fine, but not at a total abuse of taxpayers' money." - Alex Neil, SNP MSP for Central Scotland
Story in full
BILL Clinton, the former president of the United States, flew into Scotland yesterday to speak at a gala lunch subsidised by tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money.
Advertisement: dating.scotsman.com 20% off
Although the event was organised by three Glasgow businessmen, the Executive paid out £20,000 to support the event. Government agencies, including the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), and other public bodies took tables at a cost of £5,000 each.
Among the politicians who enjoyed a lunch of Scottish lobster, rack of lamb and Drambuie ice-cream, washed down with an elegant 2003 Crozes Hermitage, were Tom McCabe, the finance minister, and Tavish Scott, the Liberal Democrat transport minister. Nicola Sturgeon, the deputy leader of the Scottish National Party, was also at the event in Glasgow's Thistle Hotel.
Glasgow council taxpayers might have been surprised to learn the authority thought it needed to buy a table, which was headed by Steven Purcell, the council leader.
Alex Neil, SNP MSP for Central Scotland and convener of the enterprise committee, said if the Executive wanted to help charities there were more efficient ways of doing it. "That money would have been far better spent in Malawi, rather than on a booze-up for members of the Executive. They have lost all sense of priority. If people want to have lunch with Bill Clinton, fine, but not at a total abuse of taxpayers' money."
Mr Neil said that only Jack McConnell, the First Minister, and another member of Cabinet were needed to represent Scotland. "It annoys me that we are working with charities struggling to get £10,000 and the Executive says there is no money available - and then they waste £20,000 on an event like this."
Bill Aitken, the Conservative chief whip, said:
"I am all for promoting Scotland, but this clearly has not been value for money. The fact that Mr Clinton turned up so late indicates that he did not consider the event important and this money could have been better spent."
Mr Clinton did not attend the meal, but chose instead to play golf at Prestwick. It was only after shooting an 89 on the famous Ayrshire links that he headed to Glasgow to wow his audience with an 80-minute speech.
Despite Mr Clinton's absence from the meal itself, the chance to hear the former president speak was enough to open the cheque books of people from a wide range of businesses. Royal Bank of Scotland took three of the 50 tables, each one costing £5,000. The HSBC took one, as did Dunfermline Building Society.
They were packed in alongside the hairdresser Charlie Miller, the businesswoman Michelle Mone, and Barry Ferguson, the captain of Rangers Football Club. Sir Tom Hunter, the entrepreneur and philanthropist, the former footballer Kenny Dalglish and Willie Haughey, the tycoon, were also present.
Mr Clinton set out his vision of the world in the 21st century, using the forces of globalisation for good and harnessing the full potential of clean energy.
He also gave public support to his old friend, Tony Blair. Mr Clinton described the "third way" as the "best political philosophy" for a modern country.
He said: "Whatever the political problems the government are in, the UK is way better off than it would have been had it not been governed the way it has for the last ten years."
An Executive spokesman said it had spent £20,000 on branding the event and taking one table for international media. He said "This is a great opportunity to promote Scotland on the international stage so we think this is money well spent."
ProjectScotland, the Executive body to recruit youngsters into volunteering and Determined to Succeed, the Executive body to boost education standards, also had a table each, which they paid for.
Glasgow City Council said: "We are actively engaged in raising the city's profile on a national and international stage. Whether it be attracting further commercial investment and jobs, or showcasing our dramatic transformation and regeneration, it is crucial that Glasgow plays a part in events such as this."
===
Is there something wrong with giving a luncheon for a man who was not going to sit down and eat it?
paraclete answered on 05/12/06:wa hoot man! they's nae money in ma purse, do yu nae ken wha aye mean now. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 05/09/06 - Coalition Forces Discover Key Al Qaeda Documents during April raid. According to Centcom :
During an Apr. 16 raid in the Yusifiyah area, Coalition Forces discovered a large amount of documents and videos ranging from plans to critiques including al Qaida in Iraq’s strategy in Baghdad, and how the terrorist organization lacks leadership, military capability and Iraqi support.
After discovering these documents, the translated versions were sent to Coalition Forces’ leadership for analysis, said a Multi-National Force spokesman. Specifically, the al Qaida author of the “Baghdad Strategy” and the “Baghdad State of Affairs” is unknown, but officials assess he is of significance within the terrorist organization.
The related translated document is here
Point 4 . is of particular interest :
The policy followed by the brothers in Baghdad is a media oriented policy without a clear comprehensive plan to capture an area or an enemy center. Other word, the significance of the strategy of their work is to show in the media that the American and the government do not control the situation and there is resistance against them. This policy dragged us to the type of operations that are attracted to the media, and we go to the streets from time to time for more possible noisy operations which follow the same direction.
This direction has large positive effects; however, being preoccupied with it alone delays more important operations such as taking control of some areas, preserving it and assuming power in Baghdad (for example, taking control of a university, a hospital, or a Sunni religious site).
At the same time, the Americans and the Government were able to absorb our painful blows, sustain them, compensate their losses with new replacements, and follow strategic plans which allowed them in the past few years to take control of Baghdad as well as other areas one after the other. That is why every year is worse than the previous year as far as the Mujahidin’s control and influence over Baghdad.
The terrorists at least think we are winning n Iraq but they have had one proven success ....influencing the media coverage of the conflict .
AP managed to report on this ,but also managed to neglect to mention the documents references to al Qaeda's focus on the American press. I wonder why ?
paraclete answered on 05/10/06:I like this verson better it makes more sense
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
نظرة على واقع بغداد في ضوء أحداث ( الفتنة الطائفية ) الأخيرة :
1 - ثبت أن للشيعة قوة وشوكة في بغداد لا يستهان بها خاصة حينما تنظم إليهم القوة
النظامية لوزارة الداخلية ووزارة الدفاع مقارنة بقوة المجاهدين في بغداد، فعند المواجهة
العامة تكون كفتهم ارجح لأنها تمثل قوة الدولة مع قوة المليشيات الشعبية غير النظامية،
واغلب قوة المجاهدين في المواجهات الخاطفة ( اضرب وانسحب ) أو نصب العبوات
والمفخخات، وهذا أمر مختلف عن طبيعة المعركة مع القوى المنظمة ذات الآليات
والاتصالات المناسبة، ولذا فان ال مستقر في النفوس أ لآن عند جمهور الشيعة والسنة أن الشيعة
أقوى في بغداد واقرب للسيطرة عليها وان المجاهد ين ( وهم الذين يمثلون شوكة أهل السنة )
لا يع دون اكثر من مجرد إزعاج يومي لحكومة الشيعة ولا قدرة له م على اكثر مما قدموه من
تصيد للشارد من الدوريات أو اقتناص المبتعد منها أو زرع المفخخات بين المواطنين والتستر
بهم عسى أن تصيب مع انفجارها أحد ًا من أفراد الحكومة أو الأمريكان، أي انه إجمالا قد يفهم
منه ضرب الخائف المتستر، وهذه صورة تحتاج إلى جهد منظم لتغييرها وتوفيق من الله
وسداد ولا حول ولا قوة إلا بالله.
2 - قوة الأخوة في بغداد ح
| | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 05/09/06 - Rhetoric? No. Yesterday I posted the following:
>>the economy is booming, unemployment is extremely low, the stock market is soaring, millions of jobs have been added and we've had no more terrorist attacks here.<<
If you'll notice in the comments my assertions were challenged, and I love a good challenge. So, on to the challenge...
>>The economy is booming...<<
The combination of strong growth and low inflation has been as good as anything seen since the 1960s, with the sole exception of the explosive growth of the late 1990s. The economy is on track to grow by about 3.5 per cent for the second consecutive year - close to the level economists view as the speed limit before inflation starts to rise. The core inflation rate has remained remarkably subdued despite the upward pressures ex-pected from surging oil prices. Wage growth may have struggled to keep pace with inflation, but soaring house prices have more than made up for this shortfall for the two-thirds of the population that own their own homes.
>>unemployment is extremely low<<
U.S. employers added an unexpectedly strong 211,000 jobs in March and the jobless rate slipped to a 4-1/2-year low, according to a government report on Friday that underlined a relatively vigorous labor market.
(It remained at 4.7% for April)
>>(those dot com guys are all working at fast food places now - yeah, they're working)<<
I'll leave that one for someone else to explain.
>>the stock market is soaring????<<
Dow Inches Closer to All-Time High
NEW YORK, May 8 -- Stocks finished a quiet session little changed Monday as investors' anticipation of the Federal Reserve's decision on interest rates muted their reaction to lower oil prices and a trio of acquisitions.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 6.80, or 0.1 percent, to 11,584.54, its highest close in more than six years. The Dow is 138 points from its all-time high close of 11,722.98, reached Jan. 14, 2000.
The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index fell 1.10, or 0.1 percent, to 1324.66, and the Nasdaq composite index gained 2.42, or 0.1 percent, to 2344.99.
With no new reports to offer clues about the economy, investors traded cautiously ahead of the Fed's latest move on interest rates when policymakers meet Wednesday.
Investors have been impressed by the economy's strength despite surging energy costs and the Fed's mission to stifle inflation by gradually raising short-term interest rates. Enthusiasm over solid corporate earnings growth -- companies in the S&P 500 have averaged double-digit gains for 15 consecutive quarters -- have carried stocks higher so far this year.
>>Where do you live???<<
Amarillo, Texas.
"Nothing but sunshine and blue sky."
That's the bright picture Keller Williams Realtor David Grimes paints of Amarillo's current and future housing market...The developers are developing them as fast as they can," he said. "There's just not enough lots right now. and that's a good problem to have."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Building permits over the past 15 years have generally shown a steady increase with 2004 and 2005 being banner years. Building permits issued in 2004 totaled $358 million in construction value and, in 2005, totaled $454.8 million in construction value."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Amarillo's boom isn't over yet.
Experts predict a rosy future as large commercial projects continue to boost the area's economy.
"When you look at Bell Helicopter, the new Ben E. Keith Distribution Center and medical center construction, those are the anchors for everything else," said Cary Finney, city of Amarillo Building Official. "Those are the projects that will mean more jobs."
And more jobs will help the service industry, including retail, hotels, restaurants and other businesses.
"Right now, we're seeing a healthy growth," Finney said.
In 2005, the city of Amarillo granted $259 million worth of permits for commercial construction, renovation and roofing. City-issued commercial building permits for new construction last year is more than double the figure for 2004.
"I think the development will continue," said commercial investor J. Gaut of J. Gaut & Associates. "We have a lot going for us in Amarillo - favorable climate, good cost of living, and plenty of available land."
>>Oh and the terrorists are all in the MidEast killing our soldiers and civilians from various countries.<<
Like I said, we've had no more terrorist attacks here. Is that to be disputed? And apparently ol' bin Laden is going to direct his fight toward international peacekeepers in Sudan. Kind of speaks to the cowardly, evil nature of a terrorist to target innocent civilians and peacekeepers in a country as ravaged as Sudan wouldn't you say? paraclete answered on 05/09/06:When stock markets get close to an all time high investors get the jitters until that new mark is firmly established, watch out for a roller coaster for a while.
Yes bin Laden is a nuiance, countesy of GWB and his predecessor who failed, yes failed, to put an end to his career. One can only conclude bin Laden is good for business and perhaps what you describe is a bin Laden led recovery | | Question/Answer | | quixotic_Choux asked on 05/07/06 - Oil Company Profits A number of years ago, oil company profits were set by government and oil company agreement and legislation at no more than 10% of the cost of a barrel of oil. So, if oil sells at $30.00 a barrel, the oil company can take a $3.00 profit maximum.
Currently oil trades at $72.00 a barrel with the expectation of $100.00 by the end of the year. $10.00 a barrel profit maximum.
Some expect the $200.00 barrel price within two years. Profit would be $20.00 a barrel.
The windfall profits of exxon come from this situation; it has nothing to do with exxon DOING ANYTHING.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Should exxon and other companies be allowed to keep the massive profits due to no action on their part, in fact, the four manor oil companies refuse to build more refineries??????? paraclete answered on 05/09/06:like any other arrangement which is open ended this one leads to profiteering or should we say racketeering | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 05/08/06 - Prosecuting the Press?? "Never once in the history of the United States has the national government criminally prosecuted the press for publishing information the government would rather keep secret. In recent weeks, however, the Bush administration and its advocates, including Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, have repeatedly threatened to prosecute the New York Times and the Washington Post for publishing their Pulitzer Prize-winning exposés of the administration's secret prisons in Eastern Europe and secret NSA surveillance of American citizens.
Specifically, the President and some of his supporters have threatened to prosecute reporters and publishers for violating a provision of the 1917 Espionage Act, which provides in part that "whoever having unauthorized possession . . . of information relating to the national defense, which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States . . . willfully communicates . . . the same to any person not entitled to receive it . . . is guilty of an offense punishable by 10 years in prison."
For at least three reasons, such threats are largely empty ones. First, this provision was never intended to reach the press. When the Espionage Act of 1917 was initially proposed by President Woodrow Wilson, it included a section that would expressly have made it a crime for the press to publish information that the President had declared to be "of such character that it is or might be useful to the enemy." Congress overwhelmingly rejected this proposal, with members of both parties characterizing it as "un-American" and as "an instrument of tyranny." The provision of the 1917 Act invoked by the Attorney General Gonzalez was directed at enemy spies, not at reporters and newspapers attempting to inform the American people about the activities of their government. Unfortunately, the Bush administration appears not to know the difference.
Second, if the section of the 1917 Act applied to journalists, it would unquestionably violate the First Amendment. Laws regulating speech must be precisely tailored to prohibit only speech that may constitutionally be proscribed. This requirement addresses the concern that overbroad laws - laws that are not narrowly crafted - will chill the willingness of individuals to speak freely because of a fear that their expression might be unlawful. Not surprisingly, because the 1917 Act was drafted before the Supreme Court had ever interpreted the First Amendment, it does not incorporate any of the safeguards the Court has since held the First Amendment requires. For example, the Espionage Act provision is not limited only to publications that pose a "clear and present danger." For this reason, any prosecution of the press under this section would be dismissed out-of-hand because the statute itself is unconstitutional.
Third, if Congress today enacted legislation incorporating the requirements of the First Amendment, it could not reach the exposés published by the New York Times and the Washington Post, for they were clearly protected by the First Amendment. Under existing law, such a statute would have to be limited to publications that (a) do not disclose information of legitimate and important public interest and (b) pose a clear and present danger of serious harm to the national security. The exposés of the Bush administration's secret prisons and secret electronic surveillance of American citizens clearly concerned matters of legitimate and important public interest, and the administration has made no showing that these disclosures created a clear and present danger of serious harm to the national security. Thus, under a properly drawn statute these disclosures could not constitutionally be punished.
I do not mean to suggest, of course, that the government has no interest in keeping military secrets or that it may never punish the press for disclosing classified information. To the contrary, the government may take many steps to keep such information secret, including (in appropriate circumstances) firing and even criminally prosecuting public employees who unlawfully leak such information. Moreover, in narrowly-defined circumstances, the government may prosecute the press for disclosing classified national security information. Such a prosecution might be consistent with the First Amendment, for example, if a newspaper reveals that the government has secretly broken an important al Qaeda code, where this disclosure causes al Qaeda to change its code. But the government can never punish the press for publishing information of legitimate and important public concern, and especially not when the information reveals possible government wrongdoing, as was true in both the secret prison and NSA situations. Such revelations are essential to effective self-governance and they are at the very core of the First Amendment.
Although the continuing threats of the Bush administration are largely bluster, they must nonetheless be taken seriously. They represent further steps in this administration's relentless campaign to intimidate and control the press, and to keep the American people in the dark. This, in itself, poses a clear and present danger to our democracy."
by Geoffrey R. Stone
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Comments? paraclete answered on 05/09/06:those who will not control themselves will eventually be controlled | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 05/08/06 - Does Germany show the way for the USA?
Germany's jobless urged to take work in asparagus harvest
ALLAN HALL IN BERLIN
EUROPE'S largest legal annual migration is under way with university professors joining roadsweepers and the jobless to pour into Germany from eastern Europe to pick asparagus.
People come in their tens of thousands from Poland and the Czech Republic for two-months of plucking that which Germans love to see on their dinner tables, but of whose harvest they want no part.
Living.scotsman.com MPU
Once again the German government is throwing money at the nation's five million jobless, trying to persuade and cajole them into working for a change. But asparagus-picking is one job they refuse to do.
The asparagus spring harvest is again stirring a heated controversy over the use of seasonal workers from abroad who some complain are taking away jobs from unemployed Germans.
The return of about 300,000 Poles on work permits this season, and several thousand Czechs, has become a national controversy as many people wonder why some of Germany's jobless can't do the work.
Using a carrot-and-stick strategy, the German labour office has launched a campaign to fill at least 10 per cent of seasonal harvest jobs with Germans on the dole. According to Edelgard Woythe, the head of the local employment office in Potsdam - the capital of Brandenburg where 50,000 unemployed could theoretically do the job - the government is trying everything to get Germans into the fields.
"We've put in enormous efforts to convince people to work in the fields," she said. "We've set up training sessions where people can learn how to pick asparagus."
Despite an extra bonus of 25 (£18) a day and free transport to the fields, among Brandenburg's army of jobless only 154 have so far taken on harvesting jobs.
Germans can earn between £1,400-£3,000 during the six-week asparagus season.
If that's not enough of an incentive, some of the unemployed may be made to learn the hard way - through cuts in their benefits.
===
How would this go down in the USA? Should feckless Americans who would rather be on the dole than pick the nation's lettuce have their handouts cut if they refuse to take the jobs available?
paraclete answered on 05/09/06:in answer to your question, people should be persuaded, not forced, to take available work. In answer to chou, unemployed women should also be removed, that means all the housewives who don't do anything else to contribute | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 05/04/06 - Yeah for sensible Laura Bush! She is more tolerant than her husband. Why is that? Bush's Spanish "not that good"
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Thursday disputed an account of President George W. Bush singing the U.S. national anthem in Spanish during the 2000 presidential campaign, saying his Spanish is not that good.
Critics have accused Bush of hypocrisy for opposing a Spanish language version of the anthem.
They pointed to a book called "American Dynasty" by Kevin Phillips, who wrote that Bush "would drop in at Hispanic festivals and parties, sometimes joining in singing 'The Star-Spangled Banner' in Spanish."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the assertion did not ring true to him because, "The president speaks Spanish, but not that well."
"I'm saying that not only was that suggestion absurd, but that he couldn't possibly sing the national anthem in Spanish. He's not that good with his Spanish," McClellan said.
Bush, a former governor of Texas, sprinkles his speeches with Spanish phrases, as he did during both his presidential campaigns, to show kinship with Hispanics.
But last week, he said he thought the national anthem should be sung in English, after the "Star-Spangled Banner," or "Nuestro Himno," made its debut with a new Latin beat and Spanish lyrics.
Bush's wife, Laura, appeared to disagree.
"I don't think there's anything wrong with singing it in Spanish," said told CNN in an interview on Wednesday.
She said she thought it should be sung in English, but pointed out that,
"We are a nation of immigrants. We are a nation of many, many languages, because immigrants come and bring their languages."
===
Why do you think Laura is more tolerant that george? Could it be because she is a womand and therefore more nurturing than her right wing conservative husband who has to placate those further to the right of him?
Or is she just plain stupid?
paraclete answered on 05/06/06:Ah rhetorical questions, don't you just love them. It's appearent you are just starting to see multiculturalism for what it is, takeover | | Question/Answer | | captainoutrageous asked on 05/05/06 - More "lightening" up Posted here at the request of purplewings:
Dear President Bush:
I'm about to plan a little trip with my family and extended family, and I
would like to ask you to assist me. I'm going to walk across the border
from the U.S. into Mexico, and I need to make a few arrangements. I know
you can help with this.
I plan to skip all the legal stuff like visas, passports, immigration
quotas and laws. I'm sure they handle those things the same way you do
here.
So, would you mind telling your buddy, President Vicente Fox, that I'm on
my way over? Please let him know that I will be expecting the following:
1. Free medical care for my entire family.
2. English-speaking government bureaucrats for all services I might need,
whether I use them or not.
3. All government forms need to be printed in English.
4. I want my kids to be taught by English-speaking teachers.
5. Schools need to include classes on American culture and history.
6. I want my kids to see the American flag flying on the top of the flag
pole at their school with the Mexican flag flying lower down.
7. Please plan to feed my kids at school for both breakfast and lunch.
8. I will need a local Mexican driver's license so I can get easy access to
government services.
9. I do not plan to have any car insurance, and I won't make any effort to
learn local traffic laws.
10. In case one of the Mexican police officers does not get the memo from
Pres. Fox to leave me alone, please be sure that all police officers speak
English.
11. I plan to fly the U.S. flag from my house top, put flag decals on my
car, and have a gigantic celebration on July 4th. I do not want any
complaints or negative comments from the locals.
12. I would also li ke to have a nice job without paying any taxes, and
don't enforce any labor laws or tax laws.
13. Please tell all the people in the country to be extremely nice and
never say a critical word about me, or about the strain I might place on
the economy.
I know this is an easy request because you already do all these things for
all the people who come to the U.S. from Mexico. I am sure that Pres. Fox
won't mind returning the favor if you ask him nicely.
However, if he gives you any trouble, just invite him to go quail hunting
with your V.P.
Thank you so much for your kind help.
paraclete answered on 05/06/06:hey you are planning to go to Mexico not Utopia | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 05/05/06 - Aztlan With all that we have been hearing about illegal immigrants demanding their rights, the mainstream meadia has been largely ignoring the "Aztlan" crowd... the Mexican-rights groups that demand the return of Mexican lands to Mexico, lands such as Texas, California, Nevada, and Utah, and parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. They too have had a very large presence in the various demonstrations, with slogans like "Mexico to the Mexicans" and "Get off Our Land", and other stuff.
I suggest that we put this out to the Aztlan crowd: we'll give back all the lands ceeded to the US by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in exactly the same condition that it was when we took it. We'll take every structure, every piece of machinery, every company, every hospital, every school, every job, with us when we leave. We will leave you with exactly what you had when you lost the war... an empty desert.
What say you? How excited are you to get a barren wasteland that you will have to build from scratch in order to get the least little income from? When you take that empty piece of land that is more burden than asset, will you then recognize that it was American ingenuity and sweat and determination that built everything that has ever existed there since 1848?
Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.
I am sick of people demanding that America give up what it has worked for and earned to those who have not. American know-how built this country, made it the richest and most free country in the world for those who obey its laws. That know-how and determination has made many other countries richer as well, and provided goods and services thoughout the world. I am sick of people who have benefited from our generosity and ability putting us down as "imperialist pigs" or "usurpers" or any other thing.
Sorry for the rant. I just needed to vent.
Comments are appreciated.
Elliot paraclete answered on 05/06/06:Elliott
I understand your sentiments. We have the same problem here, people who were hunter gathers and who hardly live above subsistance level telling us they own what we have created. It's a strange world, but you need to repel the invasion otherwise they will take back what they lost. | | Question/Answer | | quixotic_Choux asked on 05/06/06 - Iraq War - Foreign Policy Disaster ".....But the war did not go well for long. Though Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice now seems to have replaced Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as chief cheerleader for the war, many now see the invasion of Iraq as an historic disaster on par with Napoleon's invasion of Moscow in 1812 and the Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415 BCE. Both ended empires that had seemed invincible. Tom Ricks reported in The Washington Post April 30, that military leaders are considering whether, "the surest -- and perhaps now the only -- way to bring stability to Iraq is to divide the country into three pieces." The alternative view is not to press on to victory, Ricks says, but to withdraw and allow a civil war to settle the question.
America has lost more than a division's worth of brave soldiers to the war, with over 2,400 killed and 17,500 maimed. Our national debt increases by over $2 billion every week to pay for the war. America's international reputation is at its lowest point in history. Even our closest allies mistrust our motives, question our vision and are saddened by our abandonment of shared values. It is not that they resent American leadership; they just do not want this kind of leadership.
The danger of nuclear terrorism has also grown as the ideology of al Qaeda has spread like wildfire throughout the Muslim world. But our programs to secure and eliminate the highly-enriched uranium and plutonium scattered in stockpiles in dozens of countries have not kept pace. If Osama bin Laden can get his hands on these materials, his group can almost certainly build, deliver and detonate a bomb that can destroy any American city. Without this material he is powerless to do so. Yet we spend only $1 billion on year these programs. We spend this much every 4 days in Iraq.
Perhaps the most disheartening is that our senior government officials have not acknowledged these failures or given the slightest indication that they are working on correctives. On the contrary, the 2006 National Security Strategy of the United States repeats the emphasis on preemptive war, this time focusing on Iran rather than Iraq. As faux news anchor Stephen Colbert said in his mocking tribute to President Bush at the White House Correspondents dinner, "When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday - no matter what happened Tuesday."
The administration is strategically exhausted. Its only solution to the problem of Iran is to repeat the Iraq playbook. The speeches, the refusal to negotiate directly with Iran, the unnerving presence of Iranian exiles whispering sweet promises in Washington, the framing of the issue as one of the "credibility of the Security Council" are all straight out of the campaign that successfully fooled a majority of the nation, convincing them that Iraq was an urgent threat and somehow linked to September 11.
Thus, it falls to those of us outside of the governing circles to detail the failures, to forge new strategies and champion a new course. Some are already doing just that; more are needed. Most importantly, we must expose fully the mistakes of this strategy and of those who developed it so that America does not lurch into an unnecessary war. Not again".....Shortened from an article by Joe Cinicincione.
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Blunder after horrific blunder, and now today, his hand picked replacement to head the CIA, Goss, had to "resign" hastily leaving a seriously damaged agency...after only 19 months. paraclete answered on 05/06/06:Iraq is a disaster on any scale, not just of failed foriegn policy but of failed humanity | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 05/04/06 - The shape of things to come ..................... Illegal Immigrants Returning To Mexico For American Jobs
May 3, 2006 | Issue 42�18
MEXICO CITY�As dozens of major American corporations continue to move their manufacturing operations to Mexico, waves of job-seeking Mexican immigrants to the United States have begun making the deadly journey back across the border in search of better-paying Mexican-based American jobs.
"I came to this country seeking the job I sought when I first left this country," said Anuncio Reyes, 22, an undocumented worker who recrossed the U.S. border into Mexico last month, three years after leaving Mexico for the United States to work as an agricultural day laborer. "I spent everything I had to get back here. Yes, it was dangerous, and I miss my home. But as much as I love America, I have to go where the best American jobs are."
Reyes now works as a spot-welder on the assembly line of a Maytag large-appliance plant and earns $22 a day, most of which he sends back to his family in the U.S., who in turn send a portion of that back to the original family they left in Mexico. Like many former Mexican-Americans forced by circumstance to become American-Mexicans, Reyes dreams of one day bringing his relatives to Mexico so that they, too, may secure American employment in Mexico.
Despite the considerable risk illegal immigrants face in returning across the border, many find the lure of large U.S. factory salaries hard to resist�at 15 percent of the pay of corresponding jobs in America, these positions pay three times what Mexican jobs do.
Still, the danger is very real. When 31-year-old illegal Arizona resident Ignacio Jimenez sought employment at an American plant in Mexico, he was shot at by Mexican border guards as he attempted to illegally enter the country of his citizenship, pursued by U.S. immigration officials who thought he might be entering the country illegally, and fired upon again by a second group of U.S. Border Patrol agents charged with keeping valuable table-busing and food-delivery personnel inside American borders.
"It was a nightmare," Jimenez said. "Many became disoriented and panicked, and some were mixed in with immigrants going the other way across the Rio Grande and ended up swimming to the wrong country."
He added: "My cousin almost drowned. They fished him out and sent him back to wash dishes at T.G.I. Friday's."
Many say the trip across the border as illegal Mexican-American emigrants offers them a chance to land the American jobs in Mexico they never have been able to get as illegal Mexican-American immigrants in the U.S.
"It has always been my goal to have a good American job," Johnson Controls technician Camilla Torres, 27, said. "Many Mexicans now see Mexico as the land of opportunity. Mexicans will not stop trying to get here, no matter how much the Mexicans wish we would not."
Indeed, the trend of illegal re-emigration is causing great resentment among the local Mexican population, and tension between Mexicans and illegally re-entered Mexicans�dubbed repatriados�continues to build.
"I hate these Mexicans, always coming back here to Mexico from America and taking American jobs from the Mexicans who stayed in Mexico," said 55-year-old former Goodyear factory manager Juan-Miguel Diaz, who lost his job to a better-trained repatriado last March. "Why don't they go back to where they went to?"
Still, Jimenez, Reyes, and hundreds of others say they have no choice.
"The American Dream is alive and well in Mexico," Reyes said. "If I work hard, save my money, and plan well, I will be able to send my children to a good school�and who knows? If they study hard, perhaps they will get jobs someday at the new plant General Motors is building in China."
===
�Comentarios?
paraclete answered on 05/04/06:very interesting, looks like the plan is working but I like the part about americans trying to stop the illegals leaving. The US should make up it's mind either it wants these people or it doesn't. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 05/02/06 - Worth the read... White Guilt and the Western Past
Why is America so delicate with the enemy?
BY SHELBY STEELE
Tuesday, May 2, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
There is something rather odd in the way America has come to fight its wars since World War II.
For one thing, it is now unimaginable that we would use anything approaching the full measure of our military power (the nuclear option aside) in the wars we fight. And this seems only reasonable given the relative weakness of our Third World enemies in Vietnam and in the Middle East. But the fact is that we lost in Vietnam, and today, despite our vast power, we are only slogging along--if admirably--in Iraq against a hit-and-run insurgency that cannot stop us even as we seem unable to stop it. Yet no one--including, very likely, the insurgents themselves--believes that America lacks the raw power to defeat this insurgency if it wants to. So clearly it is America that determines the scale of this war. It is America, in fact, that fights so as to make a little room for an insurgency.
Certainly since Vietnam, America has increasingly practiced a policy of minimalism and restraint in war. And now this unacknowledged policy, which always makes a space for the enemy, has us in another long and rather passionless war against a weak enemy.
Why this new minimalism in war?
It began, I believe, in a late-20th-century event that transformed the world more profoundly than the collapse of communism: the world-wide collapse of white supremacy as a source of moral authority, political legitimacy and even sovereignty. This idea had organized the entire world, divided up its resources, imposed the nation-state system across the globe, and delivered the majority of the world's population into servitude and oppression. After World War II, revolutions across the globe, from India to Algeria and from Indonesia to the American civil rights revolution, defeated the authority inherent in white supremacy, if not the idea itself. And this defeat exacted a price: the West was left stigmatized by its sins. Today, the white West--like Germany after the Nazi defeat--lives in a kind of secular penitence in which the slightest echo of past sins brings down withering condemnation. There is now a cloud over white skin where there once was unquestioned authority.
I call this white guilt not because it is a guilt of conscience but because people stigmatized with moral crimes--here racism and imperialism--lack moral authority and so act guiltily whether they feel guilt or not.
They struggle, above all else, to dissociate themselves from the past sins they are stigmatized with. When they behave in ways that invoke the memory of those sins, they must labor to prove that they have not relapsed into their group's former sinfulness. So when America--the greatest embodiment of Western power--goes to war in Third World Iraq, it must also labor to dissociate that action from the great Western sin of imperialism. Thus, in Iraq we are in two wars, one against an insurgency and another against the past--two fronts, two victories to win, one military, the other a victory of dissociation.
The collapse of white supremacy--and the resulting white guilt--introduced a new mechanism of power into the world: stigmatization with the evil of the Western past. And this stigmatization is power because it affects the terms of legitimacy for Western nations and for their actions in the world. In Iraq, America is fighting as much for the legitimacy of its war effort as for victory in war. In fact, legitimacy may be the more important goal. If a military victory makes us look like an imperialist nation bent on occupying and raping the resources of a poor brown nation, then victory would mean less because it would have no legitimacy. Europe would scorn. Conversely, if America suffered a military loss in Iraq but in so doing dispelled the imperialist stigma, the loss would be seen as a necessary sacrifice made to restore our nation's legitimacy. Europe's halls of internationalism would suddenly open to us.
Because dissociation from the racist and imperialist stigma is so tied to legitimacy in this age of white guilt, America's act of going to war can have legitimacy only if it seems to be an act of social work--something that uplifts and transforms the poor brown nation (thus dissociating us from the white exploitations of old). So our war effort in Iraq is shrouded in a new language of social work in which democracy is cast as an instrument of social transformation bringing new institutions, new relations between men and women, new ideas of individual autonomy, new and more open forms of education, new ways of overcoming poverty--war as the Great Society.
This does not mean that President Bush is insincere in his desire to bring democracy to Iraq, nor is it to say that democracy won't ultimately be socially transformative in Iraq. It's just that today the United States cannot go to war in the Third World simply to defeat a dangerous enemy.
White guilt makes our Third World enemies into colored victims, people whose problems--even the tyrannies they live under--were created by the historical disruptions and injustices of the white West. We must "understand" and pity our enemy even as we fight him. And, though Islamic extremism is one of the most pernicious forms of evil opportunism that has ever existed, we have felt compelled to fight it with an almost managerial minimalism that shows us to be beyond the passions of war--and thus well dissociated from the avariciousness of the white supremacist past.
Anti-Americanism, whether in Europe or on the American left, works by the mechanism of white guilt. It stigmatizes America with all the imperialistic and racist ugliness of the white Western past so that America becomes a kind of straw man, a construct of Western sin. (The Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons were the focus of such stigmatization campaigns.) Once the stigma is in place, one need only be anti-American in order to be "good," in order to have an automatic moral legitimacy and power in relation to America. (People as seemingly disparate as President Jacques Chirac and the Rev. Al Sharpton are devoted pursuers of the moral high ground to be had in anti-Americanism.) This formula is the most dependable source of power for today's international left. Virtue and power by mere anti-Americanism. And it is all the more appealing since, unlike real virtues, it requires no sacrifice or effort--only outrage at every slight echo of the imperialist past.
Today words like "power" and "victory" are so stigmatized with Western sin that, in many quarters, it is politically incorrect even to utter them. For the West, "might" can never be right. And victory, when won by the West against a Third World enemy, is always oppression. But, in reality, military victory is also the victory of one idea and the defeat of another. Only American victory in Iraq defeats the idea of Islamic extremism. But in today's atmosphere of Western contrition, it is impolitic to say so.
America and the broader West are now going through a rather tender era, a time when Western societies have very little defense against the moral accusations that come from their own left wings and from those vast stretches of nonwhite humanity that were once so disregarded.
Europeans are utterly confounded by the swelling Muslim populations in their midst. America has run from its own mounting immigration problem for decades, and even today, after finally taking up the issue, our government seems entirely flummoxed. White guilt is a vacuum of moral authority visited on the present by the shames of the past. In the abstract it seems a slight thing, almost irrelevant, an unconvincing proposition. Yet a society as enormously powerful as America lacks the authority to ask its most brilliant, wealthy and superbly educated minority students to compete freely for college admission with poor whites who lack all these things. Just can't do it.
Whether the problem is race relations, education, immigration or war, white guilt imposes so much minimalism and restraint that our worst problems tend to linger and deepen. Our leaders work within a double bind. If they do what is truly necessary to solve a problem--win a war, fix immigration--they lose legitimacy.
To maintain their legitimacy, they practice the minimalism that makes problems linger. What but minimalism is left when you are running from stigmatization as a "unilateralist cowboy"? And where is the will to truly regulate the southern border when those who ask for this are slimed as bigots? This is how white guilt defines what is possible in America. You go at a problem until you meet stigmatization, then you retreat into minimalism.
Possibly white guilt's worst effect is that it does not permit whites--and nonwhites--to appreciate something extraordinary: the fact that whites in America, and even elsewhere in the West, have achieved a truly remarkable moral transformation. One is forbidden to speak thus, but it is simply true. There are no serious advocates of white supremacy in America today, because whites see this idea as morally repugnant. If there is still the odd white bigot out there surviving past his time, there are millions of whites who only feel goodwill toward minorities.
This is a fact that must be integrated into our public life--absorbed as new history--so that America can once again feel the moral authority to seriously tackle its most profound problems. Then, if we decide to go to war, it can be with enough ferocity to win.
Mr. Steele, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, is author, most recently, of "White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era," published this week by HarperCollins.
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Comments? paraclete answered on 05/03/06:maybe he has it right, perhaps the attitudes had their origin in a white society but they don't come with skin colour, they come with culture, the culture of those with superior fire power, the culture of those with better education, the culture of those with respect for human life. let us hope america gains the moral authority to tackle it's own problems before it imposes it's solutions on the rest of us, now that would be a culture worth adopting | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 05/01/06 - The Union of Scotland with England ... Union of Scotland with England
BRENDAN O'BRIEN
THE ACT of Union marrying Scotland and England, providing for one parliament to administer the two nations, was passed in January 1707 and came into legal effect in May of that year. However, the two nations' courtship was anything but smooth.
For centuries English kings failed to unite the two countries by conquest from Edward I through Henry VIII's 'rough wooing' of Scotland in 1542. James VI of Scotland and the I of England in 1603 also failed to unite the countries under the crown. His son, Charles I, faired no better before his execution, but attempts at a union continued under Cromwell during the Interregnum.
Both countries had very different motivations for union before 1707. The English wanted to secure a Protestant monarch and passed the Act of Settlement in 1700 to that effect. But the Scots jeopardised the English succession by passing an Act of Security making it their business to choose who would be Scottish monarch. The English also wanted to end the Auld Alliance between Scotland and France that curtailed many of their imperial ambitions.
Resources
Parcel o' Rogues
For the Scots, the issues were financial. The economy had been bankrupted by the failed Darien expedition of 1698 when almost the entire country had invested in a scheme to secure a colony on the Panamanian peninsula controlling trade between the Atlantic and Pacific. A trade war between the two countries followed.
Provisions in the 1707 Act established a trade, customs and political union. The Scots secured extremely favourable conditions on tax (the Scots would raise only 1/40th of revenue) at the expense of under-representation in the British parliament (a twelfth of seats in the Commons, and a handful in the Lords, for a country which was a sixth of the total population).
The Scottish people did not want a union and rioted but their nobles were more easily swayed. Many Scots nobles who partook in the negotiations were bribed, one according to some accounts for the shockingly small sum of £11, leading to Burns's famous depiction of them, summing up the popular view, as a “Parcel o' Rogues”.
Parcel o' Rogues
Fareweel tae all oor Scottish fame
Fareweel oor ancient glory
Fareweel even tae oor Scottish name
Sae famed in martial story
Now Sark runs tae the Solway sand
Tweed runs tae the ocean
To mark where England's province stand
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation
What force or guile could ne'er subdue
Through many warlike ages
Is wrought now by a coward few
For hireling traitor's wages
The English steel we could disdain
Secure in valour's station
But English gold has been oor bane
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation
Oh would that ere I saw the day
That treason thus should sell us
My auld grey heid was laid in clay
Wi' Bruce and loyal Wallace
But pith an' power tae my last hour
I'll mak' this declaration
We're bought and sold for English gold
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation
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Isn't history fascinating?
paraclete answered on 05/02/06:wheas William Wallace wae ya need im. | | Question/Answer | | quixotic_Choux asked on 05/01/06 - "Mission Accomplished" Today is the third anniversary of Bush's embarasssing speech before the banner MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
What was he thinking; how dumb can you get? Is he now waiting for the rapture?
Our soldiers have been dying in Iraq longer than we were in Korea. There is no end in sight.
Well, was invading Iraq worth it now that we see that Iran is the greater threat, BY FAR??? paraclete answered on 05/02/06:Hey Chou have you forgotten, the US is still in Korea, do you think the Iraq war will last fifty years? it has all the characteristics for it | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 05/01/06 - "Failed States" Book Review cut and paste from Amazon dot com follows:
"Forget Iraq and Sudan--America is the foremost failed state, argues the latest polemic from America's most controversial Left intellectual. Chomsky (Imperial Ambitions) contends the U.S. government wallows in lawless military aggression (the Iraq war is merely the latest example); ignores public opinion on everything from global warming to social spending and foreign policy; and jeopardizes domestic security by under-funding homeland defense in favor of tax cuts for the rich and by provoking hatred and instability abroad that may lead to terrorist blowback or nuclear conflict. Ranging haphazardly from the Seminole War forward, Chomsky's jeremiad views American interventionism as a pageant of imperialist power-plays motivated by crass business interests. Disdaining euphemisms, he denounces American "terror" and "war crimes," castigates the public-bamboozling "government-media propaganda campaign" and floats comparisons to Mongols and Nazis. Chomsky's fans will love it, but even mainstream critics are catching up to the substance of his take on Bush Administration policies; meanwhile his uncompromising moral sensibility, icy logic and withering sarcasm remain in a class by themselves. Required reading for every thoughtful citizen."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Are your fingers all a-tingle waiting to make an ad hominum attack on Chomsky?? Forget it!
How about dealing with his ideas described in this book review? paraclete answered on 05/01/06:he could be right! there is an inability to protect borders, lawlessness, unilateral action. The early signs are there and the outcome is more and more power in the hands of the administration | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 05/01/06 - "Failed States" Book Review cut and paste from Amazon dot com follows:
"Forget Iraq and Sudan--America is the foremost failed state, argues the latest polemic from America's most controversial Left intellectual. Chomsky (Imperial Ambitions) contends the U.S. government wallows in lawless military aggression (the Iraq war is merely the latest example); ignores public opinion on everything from global warming to social spending and foreign policy; and jeopardizes domestic security by under-funding homeland defense in favor of tax cuts for the rich and by provoking hatred and instability abroad that may lead to terrorist blowback or nuclear conflict. Ranging haphazardly from the Seminole War forward, Chomsky's jeremiad views American interventionism as a pageant of imperialist power-plays motivated by crass business interests. Disdaining euphemisms, he denounces American "terror" and "war crimes," castigates the public-bamboozling "government-media propaganda campaign" and floats comparisons to Mongols and Nazis. Chomsky's fans will love it, but even mainstream critics are catching up to the substance of his take on Bush Administration policies; meanwhile his uncompromising moral sensibility, icy logic and withering sarcasm remain in a class by themselves. Required reading for every thoughtful citizen."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Are your fingers all a-tingle waiting to make an ad hominum attack on Chomsky?? Forget it!
How about dealing with his ideas described in this book review? paraclete answered on 05/01/06:he could be right! there is an inability to protect borders, lawlessness, unilateral action. The early signs are there and the outcome is more and more power in the hands of the administration | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 05/01/06 - Bush and Ba;lance of Power April 30, Boston Globe web site: WASHINGTON -- President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.
Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.
Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush's assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to **expand his power at the expense of Congress**, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty ''to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to ''execute" a law he believes is unconstitutional".
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pretty dangerous guy, huh?
Not only stupid and unintelligible, but on a reckless power grabbing course. I wonder how this all will end? paraclete answered on 05/01/06:there are several terms for this; dictatorship, meglomania, arrogance, but I have to ask, will he see elections as unconstitutional at the end of his presidency? the next step from republic is empire | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 04/30/06 - Gas - I've got some
Hello Righty's:
You say it's a supply and demand problem and then throw up your hands, as though there isn't anything to be done about it. I agree about the supply and demand problem, however I suggest that there are lots of things we can do. It was, after all, politics that affected the supply and demand problem in the first place.
For example, we got a scare in the 70's. It may have been the first time any of realized that oil is finite. We made a few political changes, but then the crisis was over and it was back to cheap gas. Again, we pretended that it wouldn't run out.
Well, it's gonna run out, and the closer it gets to that point, the more expensive it's gonna get. That's the REAL supply and demand problem we have.
Because we stuck our head in the sand in the past (what were we doing - looking for oil?), we allowed some two bit tyrants to get a lot power over us. They still have that power.
What can we do? Take our head out of the sand. Drill? Sure. Nuclear? Of course. Conserve? Makes sense to me. Ethanol? Yes. Hemp (NOT marijuana)could play a very bit roll (but out head is still in the sand). Are there other things we can do? I'll bet there is: solar, wind, geothermal, hydrogen, fusion....... ad infinitem....
Uhhh, leadership on this issue is critical. I see none.
excon
PS> I address the righty's because you're in charge. But the lefty's got nothing either.
paraclete answered on 04/30/06:you are right and you won't get any so long as you are led by hopheads and oil men.Money talks where you come from so noone is going to take the pain untill it is forced on them or they find a way to sell water for big bucks | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 04/30/06 - Bomb, bomb, bomb - bomb, bomb Iran - to the tune of "Barbara Ann"
Hello asleepatheswitchers:
Here’s what to do with Iran. Mad. It worked with the commies. Look, I don’t think we’re gonna prevent them from getting a bomb. Frankly, I’m not sure they don’t already have one. What? You trust the intelligence??? No, I don’t think they made one, but I sure think they coulda bought one.
Let ‘em get it. Then we tell ‘em that if you use it, we’ll blow YOU off the map and all your Muslim neighbors too. The only problem with that, is that we’re dealing with religious fanatics who think that being blown off the map is a GOOD thing.
excon
PS> How come I always have the solutions to the worlds problems?
paraclete answered on 04/30/06:you have heard this solution before ex so it's a recycled solution it's called MAD and your country invented it that's why you like it, they should rename that place MADUSA | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 04/28/06 - House supports regime change in Iran . The Hosue of Representatives H.R. 282, the Iran Freedom Support Act, which tightens sanctions against investment in Iran passed the House by a vote of 397 to 21, with 14 abstentions .The bill states it's intenetion is to :To hold the current regime in Iran accountable for it's threatening behavior and to support a transition to democracy in Iran.
The 21 congressmen now on the record as voting against a bill to hold the current regime in Iran accountable for its threatening behavior and to support a transition to democracy in Iran are:
Baldwin, Blumenauer, Boyd, DeFazio, Duncan, Flake, Hostettler, Jones (NC), Kucinich (of course ), Leach, McDermott, McGovern, McKinney, Oberstar, Obey, Olver
Paul, Rahall, Snyder, Stark, Taylor (MS)( 5 Republicans and 16 Dems).
It is now time to call or write your Senator and encourage them to pass the Senate version.. S. 333: Iran Freedom and Support Act of 2005
Sponsor: Sen. Richard Santorum [R-PA]
paraclete answered on 04/28/06:Support a transition to "democracy"? How do they think Iran got it's current leadership? Why don't they say what they mean, acceptance of american domination in Iran | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 04/28/06 - Foreign countries with adjoining borders can be good neighbours ...
In a year's time, on 1 May, 2007, the Union of the English and Scottish Parliaments will be three hundred years old.
The longevity of this close political association between two of Europe's ancient nations is remarkable.
It shows what can be forged between discrete countries having a common border when the will to build rather than tear down is present.
Could this fine example of symbiotic union be used in other countries?
paraclete answered on 04/28/06:There is nothing symbotic about it, the scots would succeed fully if they could. Scotland is impoverished while England flourishes, | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 04/27/06 - Their hypocrisy knows no bounds Mexico’s Immigration Law: Let’s Try it Here at Home - By J. Michael Waller
Mexico has a radical idea for a rational immigration policy that most Americans would love. However, Mexican officials haven’t been sharing that idea with us as they press for our Congress to adopt the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform bill. That’s too bad, because Mexico, which annually deports more illegal aliens than the United States does, has much to teach us about how it handles the immigration issue. Under Mexican law, it is a felony to be an illegal alien in Mexico. At a time when the Supreme Court and many politicians seek to bring American law in line with foreign legal norms, it’s noteworthy that nobody has argued that the US look at how Mexico deals with immigration and what it might teach us about how best to solve our illegal immigration problem. To prevent tourists from taking advantage of their immigration system, Mexico has a single, streamlined law that ensures that foreign visitors and immigrants are:
• in the country legally;
• have the means to sustain themselves economically;
• not destined to be burdens on society;
• of economic and social benefit to society;
• of good character and have no criminal records; and
• contributors to the general well-being of the nation.
The law also ensures that:
• immigration authorities have a record of each foreign visitor;
• foreign visitors do not violate their visa status;
• foreign visitors are banned from interfering in the country’s internal politics;
• foreign visitors who enter under false pretenses are imprisoned or deported;
• foreign visitors violating the terms of their entry are imprisoned or deported;
• those who aid in illegal immigration will be sent to prison.
Who could disagree with such a law? It makes perfect sense. The Mexican constitution strictly defines the rights of citizens – and the denial of many fundamental rights to non-citizens, illegal and illegal. Under the constitution, the Ley General de Población, or General Law on Population, spells out specifically the country’s immigration policy. It is an interesting law – and one that should cause us all to ask, Why is our great southern neighbor pushing us to water down our own immigration laws and policies, when its own immigration restrictions are the toughest on the continent? If a felony is a crime punishable by more than one year in prison, then Mexican law makes it a felony to be an illegal alien in Mexico.
Yet, if the United States adopted such statutes, Mexico no doubt would denounce it as a manifestation of American racism and bigotry.
paraclete answered on 04/28/06:on the face of it these are wise laws and nothing to make waves about. If the US and others want an open borders policy they cannot bleet about who crosses. The only answer necessary is the same as Australia has adopted. "we will decide who comes here and the circumstances under which they come". That says to illegals, get in line and follow the protocol. It says to Mexico get a grip on your own problems. Immigration should be tough, it should keep undesirables out and it should be selective. The US laws keep out highly desirable people because they cannot demonstrate they can earn a living there, why should it not keep out those who have little to offer. The US has a real need to be tough, there are serious gang problems eminating from south and central american countries. | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 04/26/06 - Words of the New Press Secretary Copy and Paste follows:
"The following are excerpts from a column that the new White House Press Secretary, Tony Snow, wrote for the Washington Times on October 26, 1989."
"Post-Woodstock Americans have destroyed the old taboo about discussing sex but they haven't disturbed the taboo's essence, which is to avoid mentioning any of the important stuff. More words about sex probably have been printed since 1980 than in the previous history of mankind, but those words haven't added a pamphlet's worth of new truth.
...most of this verbiage and imagery concern nothing more than technique. There's no mention of sex's *weird* (?) emotional impact. There's no mention of passion. There's no mention of the fact that sex is *fun only when you do it right* (HUH?).
This brings in the subject of relations between men and women, which is more complicated and *inscrutable* than the relations between interlocking body organs. If you want to make sense of real sex, you have to think about people's feelings, including the unexpressed and ineffable emotions that often give rise to sex. You need to admit that sex produces bewilderment, wonderment, fascination, confusion, elation, depression - virtually every imaginable emotion. Most of all, you need to screw up the courage to talk about love, if only to expose how shallow, pitiful, vicious and desperate loveless sex can be.
...Most studies now confirm that sex education has helped encourage sexual activity among youth. That's probably because the classes have focused on technique without addressing matters of the soul. If we really want to encourage people to behave sensibly when they're naked, why not dwell on the scary (and funny) aspects of sex - the late-night headaches, the early-morning heartaches, the vulnerability, the hilarity, the dangers of passions requited and unrequited?">>>Tony Snow *asterisks mine*
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"Great. We'll finally have press secretary who can explain how Bush is screwing the country. Was it fun? Did he do it right?">>Anon
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So, the above boxed in remark is one comment by an anonymous internet user on Huffington Post dot com, what do you think of the Tony Snow appointment?
Also, bonus question, do you think he knows anything, anything at all, about adult sex?
paraclete answered on 04/27/06:I don't think I could add anything to the thousands of words that have been written abouyt both Bush and sex, as to Snow, he is merely an observer | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 04/25/06 - Bush's Answer To High Gas Prices From Yahoo news(how appropriate)
"Bush on Tuesday ordered a temporary suspension of environmental rules for gasoline, making it easier for refiners to meet demand and ***possibly*** dampen prices at the pump. He also halted for the summer the purchase of crude oil for the government's emergency reserve.
The moves came as political pressure intensified on Bush to do something about gasoline prices that are expected to stay high throughout the summer". paraclete answered on 04/25/06:Nice to know he cares? | | Question/Answer | | jackreade asked on 04/25/06 - Nuclear Weapons Test, Nevada, June 2 Is this test to determine how effective small nuclear weapons might be in an invasion situation, say, such as Iran? paraclete answered on 04/25/06:Interesting thought, perhaps it's a reminder to several parties that US possesses nuclear weapons | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 04/25/06 - Is Hu Bush's ally? [Last] Tuesday will be a day when hundreds of protestors will be on hand in Seattle, as China President Hu Jintao arrives. Meanwhile in Washington, a 10am press conference will be held at the National Press Club to present the latest in the case of Dr. Wang Bingzhang, the overseas dissident whom some compare to Nelson Mandela — a pro-democracy campaigner who is now serving a life sentence in Chinese prison. Dr. Wang was kidnapped in northern Vietnam in June, 2002, forcibly returned to China by unknown assailants, held incommunicado for five months, then charged with "espionage" and "leading a terrorist organization," and finally convicted in a half-day trial and sentenced to life in prison. At his trial, Dr. Wang denied all charges leveled against him.
The press conference promises to hear from Tian Wang, daughter of Wang Bingzhang, and from Timothy Cooper, the Executive Director of Worldrights, an international human rights NGO. The latest developments in the case and the ongoing global campaign for Wang's release will be highlighted, and the press conference promises to present "exonerating new evidence."
Yang Jianli is another high profile prisoner, a Boston-area dissident who tried a return to China, and who was then caught and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. His case has received high level attention before, including a Condoleeza Rice phone call to Yang's family. That family, of Yang's wife Christina Fu, and his children Aaron and Anita, have been familiar faces in the dissident community, as they have campaigned tirelessly for Yang's release.
A bipartisan group of 119 Congressmen wrote to George Bush in a letter dated April 10. The Congressmen observed, "On the 28th of this month, Dr. Yang will have served four years of a five-year sentence," and asked President Bush to "make the case to President Hu that his country would have nothing to lose by releasing Dr. Yang at this point....We believe that your personal, direct advocacy with President Hu at this crucial time is our best and greatest hope in helping to bring Yang Jianli, who is a hero to so many, home."
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Is this Bush's ally? Why did Bush apologise to the tyrant?
paraclete answered on 04/25/06:one tyrant can apologise to another. One expects it's diplomacy, you cannot critise all the time otherwise you get no where. In diplomacy you always express your regrets while also expressing a view | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 04/23/06 - "The Bush Era is at an end" --- The Scotsman
GEORGE Bush is not yet halfway through his second presidential term, but power is visibly draining from the White House. Republicans who were once his cheerleaders now barely mention his name: elections are coming, and it is time for them to ditch the president.
The gains from Bush's spectacular presidential victory just 18 months ago have entirely vanished. Like Tony Blair, he has seen his personal authority buried in the quagmire of Iraq and found the political world waiting impatiently for his departure.
But in Britain, we at least know that the power leaving 10 Downing Street is going towards Gordon Brown. In America, it is obvious that Bush is the loser - but it is by no means clear to whom power is gravitating towards.
The Democrats, as a party, are optimistic. The Iraq war is finally catching up with Bush and his party: for the first time since the 11 September attacks, the Republicans are now seen as the weaker of the two parties on national security.
A remarkable 30% of Americans now want immediate withdrawal from Iraq, twice the level of two years ago. This is not Democrat policy, but it indicates irritation with Bush and is an encouraging sign for this leaderless party ahead of the November elections.
So the Democrats are planning a summer of patriotic protest. One leaked battle plan shows they will lay on anti-Bush rallies using serving soldiers outside military barracks. The Republicans' only defensive strategy is to distance themselves from Bush.
Meanwhile, the Hillary Clinton machine grows stronger. The New York senator has assembled a formidable team which already looks superior to the White House, drawing on reconvened heavyweights from the Bill Clinton era.
Names like Ann Lewis, a renowned strategist, pollster Mark Penn and Terry McAuliffe, a fundraiser and likely UK ambassador under Mrs Clinton, are becoming central figures around the "Friends of Hillary" group which is preparing for power.
She is a divisive figure, hated in the Bible Belt - but then Bush was hated just as much in the urban areas. And she has made inroads into rural areas of New York State which have similar dynamics to the dozen or so swing states which decide US elections.
Every speech Mrs Clinton makes has one eye on wavering Republican voters, and there are few in Washington who would not describe her as the overwhelming favourite to be the Democrats' candidate for president. There is less agreement on who she would face.
Journalists fantasise that it will be Condoleezza Rice. To have an all-woman presidency race is such an alluring prospect that some have convinced themselves it is true - but the smarter money says Condi will run as a vice-president, if she stands at all.
The reason, often forgotten in Britain, is that she is not a politician and has never stood for elected office. She is an academic who became an adviser and who was then appointed Secretary of State - when she denies ambitions for the presidency, she is being sincere.
While Rudy Giuliani is the most popular figure, the former New York mayor is pro-gay rights and pro-choice on abortion. He may well win more votes in America, but may have trouble getting the Republican nomination for presidency: if he tries.
So the favourite to fight Hillary is Senator John McCain, who would stand as a 72-year-old Vietnam veteran and a far less divisive figure than Bush. He polls well amongst Democrats and has spent much time joining forces with them to forge legislation.
When he ran for president in 2000 he was easily eclipsed by Bush - but as he remarked on Friday, "six years ago, nobody knew me". Now, he is popular on both sides and speaks about Iraq with an eloquence that Bush's supporters wish the president had.
McCain's liability on one issue may still explode on to the political scene, however: immigration. Bush wants to grant amnesty to the 11 million illegal immigrants in America, mostly Hispanics, believing they will repay the Republicans with votes.
Some 70% of Americans are against it. Conservatives believe lawbreakers are being rewarded, and low-paid American workers fear Bush is colluding with employers to keep wages down by giving citizenship to dirt-poor Latinos.
It says much about Bush's lack of power that it took McCain to deliver the legislation in a compromise the senator negotiated last week. If McCain's plan succeeds, it will make him a target for protest amongst those whose votes he will depend upon for the presidential nomination.
The dark horse Republican candidate is Mitt Romney, governor of Massachusetts - a Republican elected to run one of the most left-wing states in America. He is a Mormon, which many Bushies consider apostasy, but has a proven ability to win votes.
On his fundraising tours (lately to McCain's home state of Arizona) he has performed well on the stump - cracking jokes about his religion and drawing laughter and admiration from the type of people who would, in another era, have burnt him at the stake.
Impressively, Romney has brokered a scheme for universal health provision in Massachusetts using an innovative mix of personal payments, business charges and state subsidy. Even Mrs Clinton backs the plan: it could be a template for the whole of America.
So the scene is set for a McCain v Romney battle for the Republican nomination - taking on Mrs Clinton and her formidable team. Bush is left an increasingly lonely and irrelevant figure, from whom aspirational Republican politicians recoil.
You can see it on the cars of Washington. The "Kerry-Edwards" stickers are hopelessly outdated, yet are still stuck to bumpers because their owners have not been bothered to remove them. But the name "Bush" has been whipped off every vehicle in Washington.
The Democrats sense an end to their long wilderness.
If they win back the chamber in November, they will seek to humiliate Bush and exact revenge for the impeachment of Bill Clinton, who could soon be back at the White House, in the First Lady's wing.
Power seldom lives at one address in Washington. It slides between Congress, the Supreme Court and the White House - where it had stayed for six years. But no more. The presidency may have two more years to run, but the Bush era is already over.
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Agree / disagree? Why?
paraclete answered on 04/23/06:Can only agree Ronnie Bush is inept and it's time for a change, but the winds of change blow very gently over there | | Question/Answer | | triumvirate asked on 04/20/06 - The Prez Who is your favorite US President and why? List some examples, and compare and contrast with other Presidents. paraclete answered on 04/22/06:The only ones I am truely familiar with are Lincoln and Bush, so Lincoln would have to get my vote as Bush would be my vote for the most inept. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 04/20/06 - Re :ethanol 85% I am not familiar with all the science behind it ,but the ethanol that is processed is not pure 100% and there is some water in it that is subject to seperation in colder climates . The term "E85" is used for a mixture of 15% gasoline and 85% ethanol. It has an octane rating of about 105. This is down significantly from pure ethanol but still much higher than normal gasoline. It runs cleaner ;with better octane and; with the higher proces of gasoline ...cheaper. A no brainer in my book .
Given that it can almost completely make us energy independent I do not understand the reluctance of this country to switch .It would be the salvation of the domestic auto industry which already has flex fuel capable engines installed in light trucks. President Bush is ahead of the curve. He signed in the comprehensive energy bill a requirement to increase the production of ethanol and biodiesel from 4 to 7.5 billion gallons within the next ten years but as I have argued ;we need a Manhattan Project like urgency to this . paraclete answered on 04/22/06:The problem is the corrosive effect on engines although many cars are already made to the necessary standard. Older vehicles would be severly affected by the use of ethanol in high concentration so a long phase in is necessary. It took Brazil a long time to implement and it's just starting to pay off for them. It's a wonder the US doesn't consider the Brazilian adoption as anti free trade. Even if you start today you won't make a significient impact inside ten years. You don't have the will to legislate the old cars off the road and major car companies already have other technology in the pipeline so would be reluctant to give in easily and loose their R&D investment.
I fail to see why US sugar industry lobby isn't busy on this one. They are successful in keeping more efficient producers out of your market. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 04/19/06 - More on the generals As I noted yesterday, Retired Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, Retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Michael P. DeLong and Retired Gen. John Keane all offered support for Rumsfeld.
Yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, four more retired generals spoke in support of Rumsfeld, Lt. Gen. John Crosby, Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, U.S. Air Force. Maj. Gen. Burton Moore, and Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely.
Some critics suggest that the calls by the six retired generals signify widespread discontent in the military with Secretary Rumsfeld's leadership. It is preposterous for them to suggest that this small group represents the views of the 1.4 million men and women serving on active duty or the 7,000 retired generals and flag officers who respect, understand and appreciate the established American tradition of the military being subordinate to civilian control and direction....
Despite criticisms, Mr. Rumsfeld is arguably one of the most effective secretaries of defense our nation has ever had. Under his watch, the U.S. military has been transforming; it brilliantly deposed Mullah Omar's barbaric Taliban regime (Osama bin Laden's sanctuary) and Saddam Hussein's ruthless Baathist regime, freeing 50 million people from oppression and placing the countries on democratic paths. With these actions, terrorists have been denied secure home bases. These are a few key factors why terrorists have been unable to attack the American homeland again. The policy and forward strategy implemented by Secretary Rumsfeld has taken the fight to the enemy as did the nation in World War II and the Cold War.
Guess where I learned this, CNN, NBC, the NY Times, Washington Post? A Google news search found it at the Tapei Times among dozens of articles on the 'critics'.
Is seven retired generals speaking in support of Rumsfeld a "growing number" or should their opinion be dismissed?
Steveparaclete answered on 04/22/06:which tune do these guys march to. Hail to the Chief or the Colonel Bogey March, I'm sure you know how the Bogey March goes B....t, they played it night and day | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 04/21/06 - The UN is irrelevent - and insane. Disarmament board chooses Iranian
By NATHAN GUTTMAN
WASHINGTON
As the international community looks into ways of stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons, an Iranian representative was elected to be the vice chair of the UN's disarmament commission.
The commission, which began its annual conference last week, was established by the UN General Assembly in the early 50's in order to promote disarmament and to review international treaties dealing with nuclear energy.
The commission does not have any authority to enforce its decisions and is not connected to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is the international nuclear watchdog that is now investigating Iran's nuclear program and is expected to report to the UN Security Council by the end of the month.
The new Iranian vice chair, Mehdi Danesh-Yazdi, who is also the country's ambassador to the UN, said last week that Iran will cooperate with the IAEA and will "seek an acceptable venue for holding transparent talks with interested parties." The ambassador, who is one of three vice-chairpersons, said during the meeting of the commission that Israel's nuclear stockpile is among "the major sources of concern with regard to global peace and security."
The election of Iran to the senior post in the disarmament commission drew sharp criticism from US lawmakers and from Jewish organizations that are fighting against a nuclear Iran.
Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), who heads the House subcommittee on the Middle East issued a statement in which she compared the decision to "appointing a serial killer to serve as a juror in a murder trial."
Ros-Lehtinen added that choosing Iran to be the vice chair of the commission proves that the UN and the international community are "ineffective in preventing Iran from achieving nuclear capabilities."
The American Jewish Congress' chairman Jack Rosen said that the vote in the disarmament committee amounts to "a rude slap in the face of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the UN Security Council."
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Is that insane or what? paraclete answered on 04/22/06:well what do you know, true democracy in action | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 04/22/06 - Bush regrets free speech - apologises to Hu Bush apologizes to Hu for protester
In White House meeting, leaders pledge to deepen cooperation
Friday, April 21, 2006; Posted: 2:07 a.m. EDT (06:07 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. President George W. Bush and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao made little headway on trade after a White House ceremony, which was disrupted by a lone heckler and the misidentification of China's anthem.
Bush later expressed regret to Hu over the heckling, a senior Bush official said.
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Does it see at all weird to you that Bush asks Hu to expand human rights in China and then apologises to Hu because a Chinese woman uses American human right of free speech to protest religious persecution in China?
paraclete answered on 04/22/06:The politics of the end justifies the means. In the Australian parliament Bush said he loved free speech when heckled, appearently he has changed his mind. What was it that Bush regretted, that the heckler had gotten too close demonstrating another US security failure, or that another powerfull figure might have been humiliated? | | Question/Answer | | fredg asked on 04/19/06 - Gas Prices in US Hi,
Gas at one service station in Brooklyn, NY, went to $4.50 per gallon today, Wed.
Do you agree with these:
1. Iran will continue increasing it's oil prices.
2. Since the United States only uses 25% of the World oil, the United States has to "bite the bullet", watch gas prices go higher, and can't do anything about it.
3. The only time the United States will seriously start converting vehicles to non-oil use, will be when oil reaches at least $100 per barrel, causing gas prices at the pump to go to probably $8.00 a gal; with American Citizens being in a complete uproar. Now, citizens just complain, taking no action of any kind.
fredg
paraclete answered on 04/19/06:now thats not bad, it's $1.40AU a litre just down the road, I'll leave you to do the conversions but I would say that's not far off $8 US a gallon and you know what, the sky hasn't fallen and the streets are still full of SUV. Get used to it. US foriegn policy has caused this crisis and you should bear the pain along with the rest of us. no pain, no gain. | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 04/17/06 - Especially for "WE" ........................................................................
As policy decisions loom, a code of silence is broken
by Richard Holbrooke
The calls by a growing number of recently retired generals for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have created the most serious public confrontation between the military and an administration since President Harry S. Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur in 1951.
In that epic drama, Truman was unquestionably correct -- MacArthur, the commanding general in Korea and a towering World War II hero, publicly challenged Truman's authority and had to be removed. Most Americans rightly revere the principle that was at stake: civilian control over the military. But this situation is quite different.
First, it is clear that the retired generals -- six so far, with more likely to come -- surely are speaking for many of their former colleagues, friends and subordinates who are still inside. In the tight world of senior active and retired generals, there is constant private dialogue. In the tight world of senior active and retired generals, there is constant private dialogue...
Recent retirees stay in close touch with old friends, who were often their subordinates; they help each other, they know what is going on and a conventional wisdom is formed. Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold, who was director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the planning period for the war in Iraq, made this clear in an extraordinary, at times emotional, article in Time magazine this past week when he said he was writing "with the encouragement of some still in positions of military leadership." He went on to "challenge those still in uniform . . . to give voice to those who can't -- or don't have the opportunity to -- speak."
These generals are not newly minted doves or covert Democrats. (In fact, one of the main reasons this public explosion did not happen earlier was probably concern by the generals that they would seem to be taking sides in domestic politics.) They are career men, each with more than 30 years in service, who swore after Vietnam that, as Colin Powell wrote in his memoirs, "when our turn came to call the shots, we would not quietly acquiesce in half-hearted warfare for half-baked reasons." Yet, as Newbold admits, it happened again. In the public comments of the retired generals one can hear a faint sense of guilt that, having been taught as young officers that the Vietnam-era generals failed to stand up to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and President Lyndon Johnson, they did the same thing.
Second, it is also clear that the target is not just Rumsfeld. Newbold hints at this; others are more explicit in private. But the only two people in the government higher than the secretary of defense are the president and vice president. They cannot be fired, of course, and the unspoken military code normally precludes direct public attacks on the commander in chief when troops are under fire. (There are exceptions to this rule, of course: In addition to MacArthur, there was Gen. George McClellan vs. Lincoln; and on a lesser note, Maj. Gen. John Singlaub, who was fired for attacking President Jimmy Carter over Korea policy. But such challenges are rare enough to be memorable, and none of these solo rebellions metastasized into a group, a movement that can fairly be described as a revolt.)
This has put President Bush and his administration in a hellish position at a time when security in Iraq and Afghanistan seems to be deteriorating. If Bush yields to the generals' revolt, he will appear to have caved in to pressure from what Rumsfeld disingenuously describes as "two or three retired generals out of thousands." But if he keeps Rumsfeld, he risks more resignations -- perhaps soon -- from generals who heed Newbold's stunning call that as officers they took an oath to the Constitution and should now speak out on behalf of the troops in harm's way and to save the institution that he feels is in danger of falling back into the disarray of the post-Vietnam era.
Facing this dilemma, Bush's first reaction was exactly what anyone who knows him would have expected: He issued strong affirmations of "full support" for Rumsfeld, even going out of his way to refer to the secretary of defense as "Don" several times in his statements. (This was in marked contrast to his tepid comments on the future of his other embattled Cabinet officer, Treasury Secretary John Snow. Washington got the point.)
In the end, the case for changing the secretary of defense seems to me to be overwhelming. I do not reach this conclusion simply because of past mistakes, simply because "someone must be held accountable." Many people besides Rumsfeld were deeply involved in the mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan; many of them remain in power, and some are in uniform.
The major reason the nation needs a new defense secretary is far more urgent. Put simply, the failed strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be fixed as long as Rumsfeld remains at the epicenter of the chain of command. Rumsfeld's famous "long screwdriver," with which he sometimes micromanages policy, now thwarts the top-to-bottom reexamination of strategy that is absolutely essential in both war zones. Lyndon Johnson understood this in 1968 when he eased another micromanaging secretary of defense, McNamara, out of the Pentagon and replaced him with Clark M. Clifford. Within weeks, Clifford had revisited every aspect of policy and begun the long, painful process of unwinding the commitment. Today, those decisions are still the subject of intense dispute, and there are many differences between the two situations. But one thing was clear then and is clear today: Unless the secretary of defense is replaced, the policy will not and cannot change.
That first White House reaction will not be the end of the story. If more angry generals emerge -- and they will -- if some of them are on active duty, as seems probable; if the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan does not turn around (and there is little reason to think it will, alas), then this storm will continue until finally it consumes not only Donald Rumsfeld. The only question is: Will it come so late that there is no longer any hope of salvaging something in Iraq and Afghanistan?
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Original article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401451.htmlparaclete answered on 04/18/06:What is it you expect to salvage? Crediability was an early casuality;
Democracy was never to be seen;
Victory is fleeting at best and has fled away;
Sanity was never present;
Justice died in an Iraqi prison, tortured to death;
Integrity not to be used in the same breath | | Question/Answer | | arcura asked on 04/17/06 - Do you agree with Teddy??????????????............... Theodore Roosevelt's ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN
"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American ... There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag ... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language ... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
English as the sole language for schools, newspapers and other usage in this country was urged by Theodore Roosevelt in an address here tonight under the direction of the National Security League.
In voicing his approval of the recent proclamation by Gov. Harding, ordering that English be the only medium of instruction in public or private schools in Iowa, Roosevelt said:
"This is a nation — not a polyglot boarding house. There is not room in the country for any 50-50 American, nor can there be but one loyalty — to the Stars and Stripes." paraclete answered on 04/18/06:I applaud, keep you culture pure and unadultered by all those immigrants, better still why have immigrants? | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 04/17/06 - How far should the "Don't criticise the President" movement go? Does censorship by the
If you are not for us you are against us
by Nick Farrell
US Marines stationed in Iraq are complaining that the US government is restricting access their access to websites too much.
Along with porn sites, on the Army’s list of banned sites include mail sites such as Yahoo, AT&T, Hotmail. The censors are also blocking blogs and sites that do not agree with the current administration.
One marine wrote to a site called Wonkette to tell them that it was on the banned list. He said he didn’t mind The Army blocking access to porn sites, because it was a government network but he and the troops were getting miffed that access to email and possibly-not-toeing-the-government-line websites was a bit much.
Apparently the censorship is being done by the USMC Network Operations Center in Quantico, VA.
They don’t like it when troops want read minute-by-minute updates of Anna Nicole Smith's appearance before the Supreme Court or read birthday cards to disgraced lobbyists.paraclete answered on 04/18/06:Freedom of speech isn't the same as freedom to surf the internet. Such communications weren't envisaged when the freedoms were laid down | | Question/Answer | | arcura asked on 04/17/06 - Would you have believed this a few years ago? Thursday, April 13, 2006 10:53 p.m. EDT
Bill Clinton Aided Iran in Quest for Nukes
Then-President Clinton, the CIA deliberately gave Iranian physicists blueprints for part of a nuclear bomb that likely helped Tehran advance its nuclear weapons development program.
The allegation, detailed recently in the book "State of War," by New York Times reporter James Risen, comes as the Iranian nuclear crisis turns white hot, with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasting ominously on Wednesday that his nation has joined the world's nuclear club.
Reports Risen: "It's not clear who originally came up with the idea [to give Tehran nuclear blueprints], but the plan was first approved by Clinton."
Beginning in February 2000, the CIA recruited a Russian scientist who had defected to the US years earlier. His mission: Take the nuclear blueprints to Vienna to sell them - or simply give them - to the Iranian representatives for the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Dubbed "Operation Merlin," the plan was supposed to steer Iranian physicists off track by incorporating design flaws in the blueprints that would render the information worthless.
But in what may turn out to be one of the greatest foreign policy blunders of all time, Operation Merlin backfired when the Russian scientist spotted the design flaws immediately - and even offered to help Iran fix the problems.
Risen said the Clinton-approved plan ended up handing Tehran "one of the greatest engineering secrets in the world, providing the solution to one of a handful of problems that separated nuclear powers such as the United States and Russia from rogue countries such as Iran that were desperate to join the nuclear club but had so far fallen short."
He noted that thanks to the bizarre operation, Iran could now "leapfrog one of the last remaining engineering hurdles blocking its path to a nuclear weapon." paraclete answered on 04/18/06:I don't even believe it now, but given the incrediable ineptitude of US intellegence leading up to 9/11 anything is possible. No doubt this will surface as the plot of a best selling novel | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 04/15/06 - Where have our values gone?
What is happening to us? What is happening to our society? Hell seems to have broken loose all of a sudden. Where have our values of a closely knit, caring and loving society gone?
paraclete answered on 04/16/06:we are succombing to the alternative Gospel, the Gospel of self, the Gospel of salvation by works. | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 04/15/06 - Where have our values gone?
What is happening to us? What is happening to our society? Hell seems to have broken loose all of a sudden. Where have our values of a closely knit, caring and loving society gone?
paraclete answered on 04/16/06:we are succombing to the alternative Gospel, the Gospel of self, the Gospel of salvation by works. | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 04/15/06 - How much credence ..................................................................................
Zarqawi, al Qaeda are heading out, U.S. general says
By Sharon Behn
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
April 14, 2006
Al Qaeda in Iraq and its presumed leader, Abu Musab Zarqawi, have conceded strategic defeat and are on their way out of the country, a top U.S. military official contended yesterday.
The group's failure to disrupt national elections and a constitutional referendum last year "was a tactical admission by Zarqawi that their strategy had failed," said Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, who commands the XVIII Airborne Corps.
"They no longer view Iraq as fertile ground to establish a caliphate and as a place to conduct international terrorism," he said in an address at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Gen. Vines' statement came as news broke that coalition and Iraqi forces had killed an associate of Osama bin Laden's during an early morning raid near Abu Ghraib about two weeks ago.
Rafid Ibrahim Fattah aka Abu Umar al Kurdi served as a liaison between terrorist networks and was linked to Taliban members in Afghanistan, Pakistani-based extremists and other senior al Qaeda leaders, the military said yesterday.
In the past six months, al Kurdi had worked as a terrorist cell leader in Baqouba. Prior to that, he had traveled extensively Pakistan, Iran and Iraq and formed a relationship with al Qaeda senior leaders in 1999 while in Afghanistan.
He also had ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, formed while he was in Iran and Pakistan, and joined the jihad in Afghanistan in 1989, the military said. He was killed March 27.
Gen. Vines said the foreign terrorists had made a strategic mistake when they tried to intimidate and deny Iraqis a way to vote.
"I believe Zarqawi discredited himself with the Iraqi people because of his willingness to slaughter Iraqi people," he said.
Huthayafa Azzam, whose father was seen as a political mentor of bin Laden, told reporters in Jordan in early April that Zarqawi had been replaced as head of the terrorist fight in Iraq in an effort to put an Iraqi at the head of the organization.
Azzam said Zarqawi had "made many political mistakes," including excessive violence and the bombing last November of a Jordanian hotel, and as a result was being "confined to military action."
Gen. Vines, who from January 2005 to January 2006 led all coalition forces in Iraq, did not comment on those reports. But he did caution that although the foreign extremists were leaving Iraq "looking for more fertile ground," they could come back.
"The question now is what kind of government is going to be formed and is it going to be credible," he said, acknowledging that Iran had significant influence over Iraq's religious Shi'ite population.
"Iran wants us out, but not too soon -- after a Shi'ite government friendly to Iran is established," Gen. Vines said. "Iran's view is that the current government is not strong enough, and if we pulled out now, there would be a low-level civil war."
===
How much credence do you place in this report in each and all of its parts?
paraclete answered on 04/16/06:sounds like propoganda | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 04/14/06 - Generals speak out against Bush. Generals demand Rumsfeld quit over Iraq
April 14, 2006 - 2:24PM
Two more retired US generals have called for Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign, saying the chief architect of the Iraq war and subsequent American occupation should be held accountable for the chaos there.
[Bush: "Chaos? What chaos?]
As the high-ranking officers accused Rumsfeld of arrogance and ignoring his field commanders, the White House was forced to defend a man who has been a lightning rod for criticism over a war that has helped drive President George W Bush's public approval ratings to new lows.
Retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni told CNN Rumsfeld should be held responsible for a series of blunders, starting with "throwing away 10 years worth of planning, plans that had taken into account what we would face in an occupation of Iraq."
The spreading challenge to the Pentagon's civilian leadership included criticism from some recently retired senior officers directly involved in the Iraq war and its planning.
Six retired generals have now called for Rumsfeld to step down, including two who spoke out on Thursday.
"I really believe that we need a new secretary of defence because Secretary Rumsfeld carries way too much baggage with him," said retired Major General Charles Swannack, who led the Army's 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq.
"Specifically, I feel he has micromanaged the generals who are leading our forces," he told CNN.
Retired Major General John Riggs told National Public Radio that Rumsfeld had helped create an atmosphere of "arrogance" among the Pentagon's top civilian leadership.
"They only need the military advice when it satisfies their agenda. I think that's a mistake, and that's why I think he should resign," Riggs said.
But at the White House, the 73-year-old Rumsfeld drew unflinching support.
"Yes, the president believes Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a very fine job during a challenging period," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.
Major General John Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq before his retirement, urged Rumsfeld on Wednesday to resign.
Retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Gregory Newbold and Army Major General Paul Eaton have also spoken out against Rumsfeld.
The outcry came as opinion polls show eroding public support for the three-year-old Iraq war in which about 2,360 US troops have died and Bush is struggling to bolster Americans' confidence in the war effort.
Rumsfeld has offered at least twice to resign, but each time Bush has turned him down.
Pentagon spokesman Eric Ruff said Rumsfeld was ignoring the calls for him to quit and they had not been a distraction.
"Has he talked to the White House? The answer is no, he's not. And two, the question of resignation: was he considering it? No."
Ruff added: "I don't know how many generals there are - a couple thousand, at least. And they're going to have opinions."
Critics have accused Rumsfeld of bullying senior military officers and disregarding their views.
They often cite how Rumsfeld dismissed then-Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki's opinion a month before the 2003 invasion that occupying Iraq could require "several hundred thousand troops," not the smaller force Rumsfeld would send.
The White House pointed to comments supportive of Rumsfeld from Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and said criticism was to be expected at a time of war in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We are a nation at war and we are a nation that is going through a military transformation. Those are issues that tend to generate debate and disagreement and we recognise that," McClellan said.
© 2006 Reuters
===
Can you hear them now? Are they all left-wing liberal pinko media-driven commie traitors?
paraclete answered on 04/14/06:It seems the dogs are barking | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 04/12/06 - All ready for someone to spin ...
Iraqi “bioweapons” trailers: another “smoking gun” goes up in smoke
By Bill Vann
12 June 2003
During his recent [2003] trip to Europe, President Bush rebuffed charges that his administration launched the war against Iraq under false pretenses. “We found the weapons of mass destruction,” he insisted.
The claim was based on the discovery in northern Iraq’s Kurdish region of two trailers bearing laboratory equipment. On May 28, the CIA issued a “white paper” describing the vehicles as “Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production Plants.” The paper proclaimed that their discovery constituted “the strongest evidence to date that Iraq was hiding a biological warfare program.”
This assertion itself represented a damning admission. In his State of the Union address at the end of last January, Bush had warned the American public that the Saddam Hussein regime had as many as “30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical weapons” and facilities to produce “over 25,000 liters of anthrax” and “38,000 liters of botulinum toxin.” Iraq, he continued, could be in possession of “500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.”
Similarly, in his February 5 speech to the United Nations Security Council, Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke of an Iraqi stockpile of “between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agents.”
Two months after the fall of Baghdad, none of the alleged chemical weapons shells nor a single ounce of the arsenal described by the administration has been found. With growing demands that the Bush administration in the US and the Blair government in Britain account for this discrepancy, Washington seized upon the two trailers as the sole evidence supposedly substantiating its allegations.
The trucks, administration officials said, matched the description given by Powell at the UN of “mobile biological weapons labs” that had in turn been described to US intelligence by a single Iraq defector. Information given by defectors, most of them funneled to US officials via the Iraqi National Congress, which was agitating for a US invasion, had repeatedly proven false. Moreover, UN weapons inspectors checked out some of the vehicles referred to and found that they were used for testing food or preparing chemicals used in agriculture.
Nevertheless, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher cited the two trailers discovered in the north of Iraq at a May 28 press briefing and declared, “It is very important to recognize that programs that we had said existed do exist; that the kind of equipment that we had said existed does exist.” In line with this political mandate, the CIA white paper set out to make a square peg fit into a round hole.
Now, a number of intelligence officials and scientists on both sides of the Atlantic have come forward to dispute Washington’s claims about the trailers and accuse the Bush administration of falsifying evidence to provide itself with political cover.
Last weekend both the New York Times and the London Observer published articles reporting challenges by US and British investigators familiar with the vehicles to the claims made about them by the Bush and Blair administrations.
The CIA’s own report claiming that the vehicles were mobile bioweapons labs acknowledged that no trace of biological agents that would be used in weapons production were found in the trucks.
Moreover, it recounted that Iraqi scientists, who are presumably cooperating with American investigators, were shown pictures of the trailers and immediately identified them as equipment used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.
The balloons are sent aloft to monitor and direct artillery fire, and the equipment used to fill them must be mobile.
The CIA report dismissed the Iraqi scientists’ testimony on the grounds that other Iraqis “have used sophisticated denial and deception methods that include the use of cover stories that are designed to work.” It acknowledged—presumably confirming that this was just such a “workable” story—that the equipment “could be used to produce hydrogen using a chemical reaction.”
The report discounted the possibility the vehicles could have been used for hydrogen production on the grounds that they would have been “inefficient” compared to newer and more compact hydrogen generation systems. The fact that such equipment would have been denied Iraq by United Nations sanctions apparently escaped the agency’s notice.
According to scientists who are familiar with the trailers, the vehicles, if used as biological labs, would have been even more inefficient—and indeed, deadly—to their operators.
As one CIA official told the New York Times, the most persuasive evidence that the trucks were bioweapons labs was the fact that they looked like the drawings Powell presented to the UN last February based upon the claims of a single defector!
The Times, which originally joined the administration in hailing the trailers’ discovery as a breakthrough in the hunt for Iraqi WMDs, reported on June 6 that three teams had examined the vehicles. The first two, the paper said, strongly supported the claim that they were used for producing biological weapons. However, a third team, composed of more skilled and senior experts, was sharply divided. Several of those involved charged that the CIA report was falsified to serve the political needs of the Bush White House.
“Everyone has wanted to find the ‘smoking gun’ so much that they may have wanted to have reached this conclusion,” one intelligence expert told the newspaper, describing himself as “very upset with the process.”
Another WMD expert charged that the CIA white paper on the trailers “was a rushed job and looks political.”
A number of the experts, who spoke to the Times on the condition of anonymity, challenged the report on technical grounds, stating that the design of the equipment on the trailers made the claims of the Iraqi scientists far more credible than those of the CIA. They questioned whether a central tank found on the trailers was a fermenter used to produce large quantities of deadly germs. “It is not built and designed as a standard fermenter,” said one. “Certainly, if you modify it enough you could use it. But that’s true of any tin can.”
They pointed out that the trailers lacked essential equipment for sterilizing, growing and drying bacteria, without which no weapons materials could have been produced. The CIA’s response was to hypothesize a Rube Goldberg-type system in which these trailers would work in tandem with other vehicles containing the missing equipment. However, there is no evidence to support the existence of these other trailers, which presumably would have been traveling together with the ones captured by the US military.
The experts also noted that, while there was no suitable means of removing germ fluids from the vehicles’ processing tanks, they were equipped in a manner that would easily allow the extraction of gas, a feature consistent with the Iraqi scientists’ claim that they were used to produce hydrogen [a gas!] for balloons.
The Observer newspaper reported that the British military, the MI6 intelligence agency and Porton Down, Britain’s biochemical weapons center, have been ordered to perform their own investigation of the trailers in light of the growing skepticism among US experts.
Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is facing a growing political firestorm over charges that he backed the US war in Iraq based on phony evidence of Iraqi WMDs, had also touted the discovery of the trailers as proof of the US-British allegations.
“But chemical weapons experts, engineers, chemists and military systems experts contacted by the Observer [an esteemed British Newspaper] over the past week say the layout and equipment found on the trailers is entirely inconsistent with the vehicles being mobile labs,” the newspaper reported.
The Observer article noted a number of facts contradicting the claims that the vehicles had been used to make biological weapons material. These included the absence of pumps needed to create vacuum conditions essential for working with germ cultures, and the lack of steam sterilization equipment required to prevent contamination that would render bacterial weapons materials harmless. It also pointed to the canvass sides on the vehicles, which would have made them extremely dangerous to operate as bioweapons labs. Normally, such labs are airtight.
The British newspaper quoted scientists who said the failure to detect any trace of pathogens on the equipment rendered the claims of their use as bioweapons labs highly suspect. Weapons inspectors who had checked other tanks that were used in weapons production pointed out that traces were normally detectable, even if they had been scoured with chemicals.
Finally, the Observer revealed that the Iraqi military possessed precisely the kind of hydrogen-producing equipment for balloons described by the scientists who were questioned by US intelligence. A British arms manufacturer sold the system, known as Amets, or Artillery Meteorological System, to Baghdad in 1987, when both Washington and London were supporting Saddam Hussein’s regime.
If Washington were interested in the truth, it would invite independent experts, such as the UN weapons inspectors who worked in Iraq before the US invasion, to examine the trailers. US officials have made it clear, however, that the Bush administration has no intention of allowing the UN inspectors to conduct any such investigation. While these inspectors have the greatest knowledge of Iraqi weapons programs, they cannot be relied upon to produce the “evidence” that the administration demands.
The story of the bioweapons trailers follows a familiar pattern. Ever since the fall of Baghdad, the US occupation forces have repeatedly announced the discovery of “smoking guns” proving the existence of the alleged Iraqi WMDs, only to end up retracting the claims after a cursory investigation.
On April 7, the Pentagon announced that the 101st Airborne had discovered a major cache of missiles fitted with chemical warheads outside of Baghdad. It was also reported that buried “bioweapons labs” had been unearthed.
A week later, on April 13, the Washington Post disclosed that the chemical weapons found by the 101st were in reality a pesticide, probably used to control Iraq’s mosquito population.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, backed off from its original announcement concerning the missiles, telling the newspaper it “denies any knowledge of this alleged discovery.”
Two days later CNN revealed that the “bioweapons labs” had proven to be nothing more than unopened crates of standard laboratory equipment, such as test tubes.
Similarly, an announcement that troops had discovered 55-gallon drums filled with a “blister agent” was followed by a correction—the substance was actually rocket fuel.
Last month, the Washington Post reported that US military teams searching for weapons pursued one of their hottest leads, breaking into a locked storeroom inside the headquarters of Iraq’s “Special Security Organization Al Hayat,” only to find vacuum cleaners.
These farcical episodes, capped by the exposure of the trailers fraud, underscore the fact that the US government plotted and carried out a war of aggression that it justified to the American public and the world through a systematic campaign of lies.
Anyone care to spin these stories to make Bush a lilywhite truth speaker?
paraclete answered on 04/12/06:sounds like they need Maxwell Smart in iraq. | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 04/12/06 - Bush and Bush Senior Administration lies exposed ...
Trailers Of Mass Destruction
Secretary of State Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said,
"Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons....They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on, But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them."
WP, "Bush: 'We Found' Banned Weapons. President Cites Trailers in Iraq as Proof, " May 31, 2003
At the time of this statement, no such weapons were found, and no such weapons have been found to this day. On this point as well as the use of the captured trailers as biolabs, the WP said this in the above article:
"U.S. authorities have to date made no claim of a confirmed finding of an actual nuclear, biological or chemical weapon. In the interview, Bush said weapons had been found, but in elaborating, he mentioned only the trailers, which the CIA has concluded were likely used for production of biological weapons."
There was no statement of fact, there was no smoking gun. The CIA's finding was advanced as an opinion based on its own particular process of elimination, and it was immediately challenged by both U.S. and U.K. intelligence analysts who had seen the trailers.
Politex, 08.09.03
Now comes this,
"Engineering experts from the Defense Intelligence Agency have come to believe that the most likely use for two mysterious trailers found in Iraq was to produce hydrogen for weather balloons rather than to make biological weapons, government officials say".
The classified findings by a majority of the engineering experts differ from the view put forward in a white paper made public on May 28 by the C.I.A. and the Defense Intelligence Agency, which said that the trailers were ["likely used"] for making biological weapons....
The State Department's intelligence branch, which was not invited to take part in the initial review, disputed the findings in a memorandum on June 2. The fact that American and British intelligence analysts with direct access to the evidence were disputing the claims included in the C.I.A. white paper was first reported in June, along with the analysts' concern that the evaluation of the mobile units had been marred by a rush to judgment.
NYT, 08.09.03
"I don't believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, at a hearing of the Senate's appropriations subcommittee on defense, May 14, 2003
Perhaps Rummy does not know that Cheney is in the administration?
"We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."
Vice President Dick Cheney on NBC's Meet the Press, March 16, 2003
Politex writes:
Bush lies So often and in so many different ways that I've never had the patience to keep a list of them. However, when I write something and include the generalization that Bush lies, some readers will write in and say, "Oh, yeh? What did he lie about? I don't believe it."
What follows, then, is an informal listing of just some of the lies he typically tells, starting from 2/01. Now, of course, we all know that Gore lies, Lott lies, Cheney lies, etc. But the difference between those liars and Bush is the President tells us that he is telling the truth when he is lying.
Hence, he will tell us what he is going to do, like get his proposed tax cut from the surplus, then try to get his proposed tax cut from military and medicare funds, instead. Or, once he has actually begun a program, tell us lies about how or why the program has begun. Or tell a closed-door Dem meeting something and then swear up and down the next day that he didn't say it. Or saying, "Yes, Mam" and meaning "No, Mam." Or having a spinner say the opposite the next day. Or, or...you get the idea.
Some Bush backers claim he's not a liar, he's just not very bright and doesn't remember things very well. That may be true, but we're sure Bush would not allow such an excuse in his "responsibility era." We're sure Bush would agree that if he's that dumb, he shouldn't be President.
Other Bush backers claim that some of his lies are "technically correct" or "tailored to fit the audience," or some such circumlocution. What they're talking about are lies of omission rather than lies of commission. In lies of omission it's what they imply, not what they say.
For example, the other evening Bush told Congress and the American people that he was putting a "lock box" on Social Security. Now, it's very clear that Bush wanted us to feel secure in the belief that he was protecting all of our Social Security funds for the future. No question, right? Yet, the very next day when his budget book was released, we learned that Bush told a lie of omission.
What he didn't tell Congress and the American people is that he would later take from $.6 to $1 trillion out of that "lock box" to cover his tax cuts. No doubt, Bush lied. He wanted folks to believe something that he knew was not true.
Of course, politicians do this all the time. It's second nature. In sum, the thing that really bothers us about Bush's lies is that he is also a hypocrite and pretends he's above lying. As a liar, he reinforces our assumptions about politicians. As a hypocrite, he reinforces our assumptions about his character.
Condoleeza Rice - 10 Minutes, Three Lies, And No Apology!
Condi Rice, Bush's National Security Adviser, appeared on 60 Minutes Sunday evening, but, unlike Bush anti-terrorism adviser Dick Clarke at the 9/11 Probe, she did not swear on the Bible that what she would say would be the truth. While Clarke on 60 Minutes last Sunday allowed himself to be probed and turned inside and out for nearly the entire program, the edited tape of the Rice interview with Ed Bradley lasted around 10 minutes, and she said nothing new.
The short episode came across as political spin to control the bleeding, and nothing more.
Rice's Lie #1 (transcript)
DICK CLARKE (video):
I said 'Mr. President, we've done this before. We - we've been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind, there's no connection.' He came back at me and said, 'Iraq, Saddam - find out if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean, that we should come back with that answer....
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
I - I have never seen the president say an - anything to an - people in an intimidating way, to try to get a particular answer out of them. I know this president very well. And the president doesn't talk to his staff in an intimidating way to ask them to produce information - that is false.
OUR RESPONSE:
Clarke and two others were in the room with Bush. The others have gone on record as agreeing with Clarke's description of the meeting. Condi was not present.
Rice's Lie #2 (transcript)
VOICE OVER:
All week long, the White House said it had no recollection that the September 12 meeting ever took place, and that it had no record that President Bush was even in the situation room that day. But two days ago, they changed their story, saying the meeting did happen.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
"None of us recall the specific - conversation....
OUR RESPONSE:
Actually, two lies here. First, the White House said the meeting didn't happen, then they changed their story. Second, Condi misleads Bradley by saying "us" did not recall the specific conversation. Of course "us" didn't since it has already been established that "us" was not in the room at the time of the conversation.
Rice's Lie #3 (transcript)
ED BRADLEY:
Clarke has alleged that the Bush administration underestimated the threat from - from al Qaeda, didn't act as if terrorism was an imminent and urgent problem. Was it?
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
Of course it was an urgent - problem....
ED BRADLEY: :
But even the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Hugh Shelton, has said that the Bush administration pushed terrorism, and I'm quoting here, "farther to the back burner."
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
I just don't agree....
ED BRADLEY:
After 9/11, Bob Woodward wrote a book in which he had incredible access and interviewed the president of the United States. He quotes President Bush as saying that he didn't feel a sense of urgency about Osama bin Laden. Woodward wrote that bin Laden was not the president's focus or that of his nationally security team. You're saying that the administration says fighting terrorism and al-Qaeda has been a top priority since the beginning.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
I'm saying that the administration took seriously the threat - let's talk about what we did....
ED BRADLEY: :
You'd listed the things that you'd done. But here is the perception. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff at that time says you pushed it to the back burner. The former Secretary of the Treasury says it was not a priority. Mr. Clarke says it was not a priority. And at least, according to Bob Woodward, who talked with the president, he is saying that for the president, it wasn't urgent. He didn't have a sense of urgency about al Qaeda. That's the perception here.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE:
Ed, I don't know what a sense of urgency - any greater than the one that we had, would have caused us to do differently.
OUR RESPONSE:
It's clear that Bradley wants to discuss the Clarke charge that the Bush administration changed terrorism from the top priority to one of secondary concern, and Rice attepts to twist the question of giving terrorism "top priority" to taking terrorism "seriously," which are two different things.
Then Bush is quoted as saying terrorism was not "urgent." Rice ignores this documented quote and goes on to disagree with Bush. As such, she is attempting to mislead by changing the terms from "top priority" to "seriously," and to simply ignore the evidence presented that Bush disagrees with her.
As such, she is on auto-pilot as she lies, spinning the implicit scenario she wants Bradley to accept.
Finally, Bradley repeatedly gave Rice the program's forum to apologize for 9/11 to the millions of viewers watching the show, like Clarke did on the show last week and previously to that under oath in front of the 9/11 Panel, but she refused each time. (transcript)
--Jerry Politex, 03.29.04
Why The Public Believes Bush's Lies
"When interviewed by Tim Russert, Vice President Cheney asserted that Iraq was "the heart of the base" for the 9/11 terrorists and went on from there with a series of half-truths and outright deceptions about almost every topic broached, including his supposed lack of current "financial interest in Halliburton." Mr. Cheney, a master of the above-reproach dead pan, just kept going, effortlessly mowing right through any objections by the host.
The vice president was banking, as Dr. Dean did on "This Week," on a cultural environment in which fiction and nonfiction have become so scrambled "and can be so easily manipulated by politicians and show-biz impresarios alike"
That credibility itself has become a devalued, if not archaic, news value. This is why the big national mystery of the moment "why do almost 70 percent of Americans believe in Mr. Cheney's fictional insinuation that Saddam Hussein had some hand in 9/11?" is not so hard to crack.
As low as the administration's credibility may be, it is still trusted more than the media trying to correct the fictions the White House plants in the national consciousness." --Frank Rich, NMYT, 09.28.03
Are these lies or are they not lies?
paraclete answered on 04/12/06:I think it can be reasonably said that the Bush Administration has no crediability | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 04/11/06 - How could so many Americans be so wrong as to abandon Bush in millions? Bush job rating at new low, poll finds
60 percent disapprove of president’s performance
By Richard Morin and Claudia Deane
The Washington Post
Updated: 10:01 p.m. ET April 10, 2006
Political reversals at home and continued bad news from Iraq have dragged President Bush's standing with the public to a new low, at the same time that Republican fortunes on Capitol Hill also are deteriorating, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The survey found that 38 percent of the public approve of the job Bush is doing, down three percentage points in the past month and his worst showing in Post-ABC polling since he became president. Sixty percent disapprove of his performance.
With less than seven months remaining before the midterm elections, Bush's political troubles already appear to be casting a long shadow over them. Barely a third of registered voters, 35 percent, approve of the way the Republican-held Congress is doing its job -- the lowest level of support in nine years.
The negative judgments about the president and the congressional majority reflect the breadth of the GOP's difficulties and suggest that problems of each may be mutually reinforcing. Although the numbers do not represent a precipitous decline over recent surveys, the fact that they have stayed at low levels over recent months indicates the GOP is confronting some fundamental obstacles with public opinion rather than a patch of bad luck.
A majority of registered voters, 55 percent, say they plan to vote for the Democratic candidate in their House district, while 40 percent support the Republican candidate. That is the largest share of the electorate favoring Democrats in Post-ABC polls since the mid-1980s.
This grim news for the GOP is offset somewhat by the finding that 59 percent of voters still say they approve of their own representative. But even these numbers are weaker than in recent off-year election cycles and identical to support of congressional incumbents in June 1994 -- five months before Democrats lost control of Congress to Republicans.
As Bush and the Republicans falter, Democrats have emerged as the party most Americans trust to deal with such issues as Iraq, the economy and health care. By 49 to 42 percent, Americans trust Democrats more than Republicans to do a better job of handling Iraq.
Democrats also hold a six-percentage-point advantage over the GOP (49 percent to 43 percent) as the party most trusted to handle the economy. Their lead swells to double digits on such as issues as immigration (12 points), prescription drug benefits for the elderly (28 points), health care (32 points) and dealing with corruption in Washington (25 points).
The public divides evenly on only one issue: terrorism, with 46 percent expressing more confidence in the Democrats and 45 percent trusting Republicans on a top voting concern that the GOP counts on dominating.
But there is plenty of time left before Election Day for Republicans to take back ground they have lost to Democrats -- or for Democrats to solidify their recent gains. In the past year, public attitudes toward Bush and the Republicans have been driven by the news. Bush's popularity rebounded at the end of last year in response to the democratic elections in Iraq and renewed optimism about the economy at home -- only to stumble as the deadly insurgency continued and scandals in Congress and the White House drove down perceptions of the president and his party.
A total of 1,027 randomly selected adults were interviewed April 6 to 9 for this survey. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points for the overall results.
Bush's job approval rating has remained below 50 percent for nearly a year. Perhaps more ominous for the president, 47 percent in the latest poll say they "strongly" disapprove of Bush's handling of the presidency -- more than double the 20 percent who strongly approve. It marked the second straight month that the proportion of Americans intensely critical of the president was larger than his overall job approval rating. In comparison, the percentage who strongly disapproved of President Bill Clinton on that measure never exceeded 33 percent in Post-ABC News polls.
The public is even more critical of Bush's performance in specific areas. On six of seven key issues, fewer than half of the respondents approve of the job Bush is doing, while majorities express dissatisfaction with him on Iraq (62 percent), health care (62 percent) and immigration (61 percent).
Concern on gas prices
Four in 10 -- 40 percent -- say Bush is doing a good job with the economy, down eight percentage points in a month. One reason for the drop may be the recent sharp increase in fuel costs. Fewer than one in four approve of his handling of gasoline prices, virtually the same as last summer when gas prices topped $3 a gallon. Overall, 44 percent said the increases are causing "serious hardship" in their family, up significantly from August.
Half of the public now disapproves of the way Bush is handling the fight against terrorism, an issue on which majorities of Americans had typically given him high marks until last year.
The depth of public dissatisfaction with Bush and the highly partisan nature of the criticism are underscored by public attitudes toward efforts by some in Congress to censure him or impeach him for his actions as president.
Democratic and Republican congressional leaders view both scenarios as remote possibilities. Still, more than four in 10 Americans -- 45 percent -- favor censuring or formally reprimanding Bush for authorizing wiretaps of telephone calls and e-mails of terrorism suspects without court permission. Two-thirds of Democrats and half of all independents, but only one in six Republicans, support censuring Bush, the poll found.
Last month, Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) introduced a resolution in the Senate to censure Bush. A majority of Americans, 56 percent, said his move was driven more by politics than by principle.
Calls to impeach Bush are not resonating beyond Democratic partisans. One-third of Americans, including a majority of Democrats (55 percent), favor impeaching Bush and removing him from office. But more than nine in 10 Republicans and two-thirds of independents oppose impeachment.
The ongoing bloodshed and political chaos in Iraq continues to drag down support for the war, the survey found. Barely four in 10 -- 41 percent -- say the war was worth fighting, down five percentage points since December. Although more than half of Americans think troop levels in Iraq should be decreased, only 15 percent are calling for an immediate withdrawal, a figure that has not varied much over the past year.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
-===-
Is this just more media lies or are Americans leaving a sinking Buship?
paraclete answered on 04/12/06:why wouldn't you abandon a leader who has been as wrong as this fellow, your problem is you have to put up with him for another three years and who knows what mistakes he will make in that time, Iran? North Korea? China? Venezuela? It seems to me your system doesn't have enough checks and balances. Too much authority and not enough responsibility | | Question/Answer | | BeelzeBUSH asked on 04/11/06 - Two Iraqi Spies
Two Iraqi spies met in a busy restaurant after they
had successfully slipped into the U.S.
The first spy starts speaking in Arabic. The second
spy shushes him quickly and whispers:
"Don't blow our cover. You're in America now. Speak Spanish."
paraclete answered on 04/12/06:You are a naughty man George | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 04/11/06 - Has anyone heard the other side on on Iraq? Paying Attention
More good news from Iraq.
By Bill Crawford
On the third anniversary of the liberation of Iraq, there is no denying that the political situation there is dicey. A coalition government hasn't been formed, and a large reason for this is a lack of leadership on the part of Prime Minister Jaafari, who is refusing to resign. Nevertheless, there are stories of hope and progress everyday, and they continue to be largely ignored by the mainstream media.
It's striking that even the Kurdish Media sees bias in the mainstream media:
The media in the U.S. and throughout the world has criticized the way the U.S. is handling the war in Iraq. They have published numerous articles that have heavily criticized US actions.
However, they fail to communicate the "good things" that are happening in Iraq. Nearly 2,000 educational institutions have been rehabilitated with USAID funding, unemployment has dropped considerably, and more hospitals are being built in the rural areas.
How about some examples? According to Reuters, here is all that happened in Iraq Thursday:
BAQUBA - Eight people were wounded, including six civilians, when a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol exploded in central Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
KIRKUK - One traffic policeman was shot dead on Wednesday night in Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, a police source said.
KIKRUK - Police said they found the beheaded body of a man in Kirkuk on Wednesday. The man was a member of the Kurdish militia, the Peshmarga.
And according to ABC News, here is all that happened on the same day, in addition to ten deaths after a bomb blast:
Roadside bombs targeted police and army patrols in Baghdad and Baqouba, killing at least two Iraqi forces and wounding 18 people, including civilians.
A roadside bomb targeted a U.S. patrol in Ramadi Thursday, according to the U.S. military. No casualties were reported.
Gunmen in three cars ambushed five Shiite truck drivers on their way to the capital from the town of Mahawil, killing all of them and stealing their trucks.
Police discovered a headless body they believe belonged to a Kurdish man kidnapped the previous night in the northern city of Kirkuk.
Police found four corpses of men in their 20s, handcuffed and blindfolded, in Baghdad's southern Dora district.
Reporting on the other six days of this week were much the same. Here is something they didn't report: In the Kurdish north, eight more mass graves were uncovered with the remains of 1,000 Iraqis.
I mentioned the Brookings Institute's Iraq Index last week in regards to the number of fatalities of U.S. troops, but I want to point out a few other facts from the report. One of the Left's favorite mantras against our winning peace in Iraq is that those that are doing the fighting and dying are largely poor, uneducated minorities. The facts show otherwise. As of February 4, the fatalities by ethnic groups are as follows: White 1,654, Hispanic 248, and Black 231. Moreover, they are more likely to be from the suburbs than the inner city: 40.5 percent versus 26.2 percent. Our mission in Iraq is an American one.
Iraq received the new Italian ambassador this week. His country has allocated 200 million Euros to the reconstruction of Iraq. The projects will focus on providing potable water and power plants.
In related news, a power plant opened just south of Basra. More than 500 Iraqis were employed in the $128 million project, which adds 5 percent to the country's electrical output:
The Khor Az Zubayr plant will generate a substantial amount of power which will be transmitted and distributed across the country. Additional electric projects are ongoing. Although electricity is not at levels expected by U.S. residents, most Iraqi families are now getting more electricity than ever before; some for the first time ever.
Air Rafidayn will soon begin flights between three Iraqi cities and the Chinese city of Guangzhou. These will be the first direct flights to China since the first Gulf War.
On Monday the third annual Rebuild Iraq Expo will open in Jordan. Companies from 32 countries will be there to take advantage of the enormous opportunities in Iraq:
The minister highlighted the role of the private sector and the benefits it can reap from the rebuilding of Iraq and the exchange of expertise and information with the international companies.
The Sweetwater Canal near Basra is undergoing renovations. When the project is completed it will provide cleaner water to 2.5 million Iraqis.
The canal has experienced problems with leakage, bank collapse, breaches and other structural problems; according to USACE, many of these problems were emergency repairs under the contract just completed.
The project included a geotechnical survey, pump assessment, head and sluice gate repairs, trash rack refurbishment, sediment removal, engine hydraulics and electronics overhauls, emergency canal repairs, operations training, design for permanent power for Pump Station Two and a computer system to track operations and maintenance.
Opportunities for women continue to be the focus for the Gulf Regional Division. A conference held in Baghdad gave more than 250 Iraqi business women the chance to learn how to receive government contracts and a chance to network with their counterparts:
According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers GRD, many speakers spoke of how proud they were to be working with the Iraqi business women, gave tips on how to build their businesses and how to build their network of business contacts.
Japan has agreed to build a $119 million power plant for the city of Samawa. The first of three power plants for the province of 200,000 should be completed in under two years. Japan also agreed to provide $300 million to help modernize the country's largest sea port at Umm Qasr. Renovations on the Tikrit courthouse are complete:
The electrical renovation included new wiring and fixtures throughout the old building; bringing it to a standard which will support modern computer and electronic technology. A newly constructed annex building adds capacity to the facility and provides for a more efficient work flow. Included in the new annex is a reception area, restrooms and office spaces that will improve the functionality of the courthouse.
On the third anniversary of the invasion, troops who have returned to Iraq three years later have noticed the progress being made:
"One of the biggest differences in Baghdad, and throughout Iraq... is that the Iraqi military is doing really well, and they're taking over more pieces of the mission," said Army Sgt. Maj. Linda Allen. "The second biggest difference that I see [between now and three years ago] is the infrastructure issue."
The troops that spoke also said that the media and politicians need to have patience with the mission in Iraq.
U.S. and Iraqi troops conducted a free medical clinic for the residents of Tarmiya. The town's leader expressed his thanks:
"Great things are happening here! This plan was put out in the Qada meeting," said Sheik Saeed Jassim Hameed Al-Mashadani, the Qada leader. "I have a good feeling (about the medical operation) today because the people get free medical attention."
"We have a good relationship with coalition forces," added Jassim.
375 patients were seen in clinic.
Iraq elected a beauty queen:
Tamar Goregian, 23, the first Armenian Iraqi to win the pageant, was officially elected the "Iraqi Queen of Beauty."
Nine contestants, including five Muslim girls, already withdrew days before the event, fearing after impacts for participating in a "taboo" competition. Eleven contestants remained.
Aside from queen of beauty, the audience also elected a teen queen and a queen of grace.
Life goes on.
In security news, Major General James Thurman told the Pentagon press corps that Iraqi security forces have proven that they are capable of protecting the Iraqi people. In Baghdad and the surrounding area, Iraqi security forces now outnumber coalition forces, and are increasingly taking the lead in operations. Thurman also said that the Iraqi people are proud of Iraq's security forces, and tips on criminal and terrorist activity continue to increase:
"The Iraqi people further demonstrate their growing trust and confidence by the use of the national tip hotline," added Thurman. "Over 3,000 tips have been received, and more than 2,500 of those tips have led to successful operations."
Thurman said terrorists are failing. "Iraqi and Coalition forces continue to disrupt multiple terrorist cells that indiscriminately attack civilians, Iraqi security forces and the Coalition."
A Marine general says the military can sustain current troop level in Iraq indefinitely, contradicting the claims of many opponents of the war that Iraq is "breaking" the military.
The two-week long Operation Cowpens ended this week. The operation resulted in the seizure of a significant amount of weapons and explosives:
Coalition forces have captured two dozen rifles, more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition and nearly three dozen rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Artillery and mortar rounds have also been plenty in the recovered items.
Soldiers on the scene estimated that enough explosive material has been found, along detonation cord and signaling devices, to rig up more than 300 improvised explosive devices. These roadside bombs have been an ongoing challenge to Soldiers in Bradley- Fighting Vehicles and in Humvees.
"We've put a stop to a lot of the IED making," said Sgt. Daniel Reinhardt, a team leader from Broadview, Mont. "The more we're out here, the more we stuff we bring out, the less the bad guys are here.
In Tikrit, four large weapon caches were uncovered during a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation. The caches included 27,000 rounds of ammo, four surface-to-air missiles, 118 artillery shells, as well as other assorted munitions. Seventeen suspects were detained.
Near Balad, an attack was repelled by an Iraqi-army unit, which returned fire after three gunmen attacked it. The attackers were later killed after firing on U.S. soldiers who arrived as backup.
In a combined U.S.-Iraqi operation, 99 rocket propelled grenades were captured.
In Yusifiyah, nine terrorist were detained, and one killed, in an operation by coalition forces.
A large weapons cache was uncovered in Balad:
The find includes more than 2,000 rounds of 7.62 ammunition, 337 60 mm mortar rounds, six 82 mm mortar rounds, two 60 mm mortar tubes, two mortar tripods (one of which had a base), one 125 mm projectile, one barrel of gun powder and 31 assorted munitions.
Near Hamaniyah, coalition forces killed eight terrorists in a raid. The operation also uncovered weapons, ammunition, and false identification documents.
This weekend a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation led to the capture of two terror-cell leaders, and 60 other terrorists.
This story is the kind that really warms my heart. Two terrorists in Baqubah were killed when the bomb they were making went off prematurely.
A top aid to Zarqawi was captured by the U.S. military. He was involved in the kidnapping of Italian Guiliani Sgrena:
Iraqi forces had captured Muhammad al-Ubaydi, a former senior intelligence official under the regime of Saddam Hussein and also a top aide to the al-Qaida leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the U.S. military said in a statement.
The statement also said that al-Ubaydi, who headed the Secret Islamic Army, was captured by Iraqi forces in southern Baghdad on March 7.
The U.S. military said that al-Ubaydi was the prime suspect in the abduction of Italian journalist Guiliana Sgrena in February 2005, who was released a month later.
Al-Ubaydi was also responsible for assassination attempts against Iraqi officials and some other kidnappings, the statement added, without revealing further details.
His arrest was a serious defeat for the terrorists in Iraq:
Officials believe Abu Ayman's capture will not only disrupt some of these attacks, and that his capture will undoubtedly save lives, but that he will also provide valuable information leading to the capture of other terrorists he has worked with in the past.
Acting on tips from local Iraqis, three hostages were rescued by U.S. and Iraqi forces in Mosul. The hostages were found chained to the wall of a basement.
The Iraqi army has assumed control of the province of Salah Eddin. The province is a stronghold for terrorists and ex-Baathists.
How about some stories of real American heroes?
Capt. Frank Diorio was awarded the Bronze Star for action in Iraq:
On April 11, insurgents launched an attack against the firm base using small arms fire, rocket propelled grenades and three suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices.
For several hours, the enemy continued the well-organized assault with intense, sporadic firefights that continued for the next three days.
Diorio's quick reactions, concise orders and sound decisions enabled his company to repel the enemy attack while inflicting a high number of casualties.
No Marines from the company were killed during the attack.
Senior Airman Daniel Acosta II was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart for his actions in Iraq. He was injured while disarming an IED:
Acosta was serving as an explosive ordnance disposal technician Dec. 7 with a team assigned to investigate a crater for explosive devices. Acosta discovered and detonated one device, but another one exploded. Acosta lost an arm.
This week, the 1st Cavalry Division will be dedicating a memorial to its soldiers killed in Iraq. The monument will honor the 168 soldiers from the division who lost their lives in Iraq.
Two Marines with the 1st Marine Division were awarded the Bronze Star for action under fire:
[Russel] also discovered that a Marine low on ammunition was isolated by the attack.
Russel then raced across approximately 75 meters of open terrain while under fire from at least six insurgents with Cyparski close by.
An enemy round struck Russel in the helmet, knocking him to the ground with a concussion.
The two Marines managed to get the ammunition to the isolated Marine with Russel bleeding profusely from wounds to his face and arms.
They then rushed back to direct the fight and establish accountability. Finding two men missing, the two Marines rushed across the open area again to retrieve a wounded Iraqi soldier despite explosions from more than twelve enemy grenades and a stream of machine gun and small-arms fire.
An Army Reservist killed in Iraq was awarded the Silver Star:
Witkowski was firing a .50-caliber machine gun mounted on a Humvee that was providing cover for a convoy when an improvised explosive device entered the vehicle. Witkowski threw his body, covering the IED as it exploded and killed him, in an act which saved the lives of others.
The good news continues — maybe you'll start seeing it from more venues soon.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How much of this have you seen on the evening news, read in your newspaper, heard on the radio or learned from any other media outlet? Any? Some? None?
Could that be a big factor as to why more Americans are growing weary of the war in Iraq?
Steveparaclete answered on 04/12/06:I think you need to see these things in context, how much was the circumstances of the Iraqi people reduced by the actions of the US and the UN. That some of it is restored is good but the price is the question. Many would say, including the dead iraqi's, that the price is too high.
Iraq, and in real context, Saddam Hussien, needed to be contained, there is no doubt of that, but Saddam in the twelve years after GWI had become a paper tiger. There was no victory in Iraq three years ago, there was a battle, many battles, and those battles continue. Victory comes with ceasation of hostilities. This hasn't happened. Southern Iraq is peacefull, but elsewhere the war continues. To use the term insurgency is to deny the truth, there was no surrender, there was no disarmament. GWI was not won, there was no conclusion, and GWII is yet to be won, to think otherwise is to deny the circumstances. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 04/10/06 - We're doomed Air trends 'amplifying' warming
By Richard Black
Environment Correspondent, BBC News website, in Vienna
Reduced air pollution and increased water evaporation appear to be adding to man-made global warming.
Research presented at a major European science meeting adds to other evidence that cleaner air is letting more solar energy through to the Earth's surface.
Other studies show that increased water vapour in the atmosphere is reinforcing the impact of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.
Scientists suggest both trends may push temperatures higher than believed.
But they say there is an urgent need for further research, particularly at sea.
Dimming no more
Between the 1950s and 1980s, the amount of solar energy penetrating through the atmosphere to the Earth's surface appeared to be declining, by about 2% per decade.
This trend received some publicity under the term "global dimming".
But in the 1980s, it appears to have reversed, according to two papers published last year in the journal Science.
The decline in Soviet industry and clean air laws in western countries apparently reduced concentrations of aerosols, tiny particles, in the atmosphere.
These aerosols may block solar radiation directly, or help clouds to form which in turn constitute a barrier; or both effects may occur.
The lead researcher on one of those Science papers was Martin Wild from the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science (IACETH) in Zurich, and this week he has been discussing the implications of those findings at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) annual meeting in Vienna.
Correlations and causality
The reversal of "global dimming" has been proposed in some circles as an alternative explanation for climatic change, removing the need to invoke human emissions of greenhouse gases.
Dr Wild dismissed this picture. His analysis suggests that "global dimming" and the man-made greenhouse effect may have cancelled each other out until the early 1980s, but now "global brightening" is adding to the impact of human greenhouse emissions.
"There is always this argument that maybe the whole temperature rise wasn't due to greenhouse warming but due to solar variations," he told the BBC News website.
"During the solar dimming we had really no temperature rise. And only when the solar dimming disappeared could we really see what is going on in terms of the greenhouse effect, and that is only starting in the 1980s."
Analyses of global temperature indicate that a sharp upward trend commenced in the early 1980s.
But, said Dr Wild, there are strong regional variations in the "solar brightening" trend.
"In Eastern Europe, we see a very strong recovery [in solar radiation] - almost back to what it was before dimming began," he said.
"But India continues with the dimming - that's very much thought to be due to increasing air pollution.
"The general position is that air pollution is still increasing in the tropics, but decreasing outside the tropics; so probably that will amplify warming a little bit outside the tropics but not inside."
Data deficit
There are, Dr Wild admitted, holes in the picture of change.
"The term 'global dimming' is a bit dangerous," he said. "I usually call it 'solar dimming' not 'global dimming' because we really only know about this where we have measurements; and we don't have measurements at many places, for example over the oceans, or land in the tropics."
More research facilities are needed, he said, in tropical regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, and especially the oceans.
As well as extending measurements of solar energy reaching the Earth's surface, he urged more research on aerosol concentrations in the atmosphere and on trends in cloud cover.
Rolf Philipona from the World Radiation Center in Davos, Switzerland, is attempting to improve aerosol measurements in northern Europe.
"We're trying to put a paper together which shows the aerosol depth and the amount of aerosol in the air column from about six to eight stations in Europe," he told the BBC News website.
"In Germany and Switzerland we would have stations very high up, extending all the way to the North Sea."
Last year Dr Philipona released research indicating that European warming is largely driven by increases in humidity.
The mechanism is that rising levels of what are conventionally called "greenhouse gases", such as carbon dioxide and methane, cause more evaporation of water, which in the atmosphere is itself a greenhouse gas.
He believes this is having more impact than changes to the transmission of solar energy through the atmosphere.
"From my results I believe it's the greenhouse warming and in particular the water vapour feedback," he said.
"Studies and papers are also coming now which are looking more closely at what water vapour is doing in other regions; and there are several pieces of work showing water vapour is increasing over land areas like the United States."
Satellites and ships
A further implication of "global brightening" is that the temperature difference between night and day may reduce.
The "blanket" of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has a net heating effect during day and night, whereas changes in solar energy reaching the surface are felt only in daytime.
Disproportionately higher night-time temperatures have already been noted in many parts of the world, and research in the Philippines has linked this trend to a reduction in rice yield.
The conclusions presented here present two major challenges to the research community.
One is to find ways of extending experimental investigations into the oceans and the developing world.
The second is to integrate them into computer models of climate, something which is only just beginning to happen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So what now? Less industry, cleaner air, reduction of nasty aerosols, the world's getting brighter - and it's only contributing to global warming - we must be doomed.
Should Bush run right out and sign Kyoto...or would that only make the problem worse?
Steve paraclete answered on 04/11/06:There is something dim about this research. It hasn't mentioned the effect of volcanic activity which causes dimming by adding vast concentrations of dust to the atmosphere | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 04/09/06 - OIL POLITICS ?? What is going to happen when we finally run out of oil?. paraclete answered on 04/09/06:There are substitutes, the question is can we produce enough? We are very innovative and if the Lord tarries long enough we may find out how innovative. There is the electric car, the hybrid and so forth, but one thing is certain we won't travel as much as we do. | | Question/Answer | ROLCAM asked on 04/09/06 -
Who to believe?
Last Sunday, a newspaper revealed that several of Britain's defence chiefs were going to meet to discuss the effects on British interests of a military strike on Iran by the United States to destroy that county's capacity to build a nuclear bomb. The story was categorically denied by Ministry of Defence officials, who told Sean Rayment, our Defence Correspondent, that there was "no truth in it whatsoever".
Yet those officials also told Rayment that by writing the story, he "had come very close to damaging national security". Asked how any story that was apparently false could possibly damage national security, the MoD officials changed tack: they admitted the story was correct in maintaining that there had been a meeting of defence chiefs - but, they insisted, an American strike on Iran had not been on the agenda.
It is, of course, no secret that the Bush administration has drawn up plans for a strike on Iran. As Seymour Hersh reports in The New Yorker tomorrow, many of the US officials opposed to a strike believe that its most immediate effect will be to generate an armed insurrection among the Shias in southern Iraq - precisely the region where British soldiers are concentrated. British soldiers are the most visible and easily accessible symbols of the American-led occupation in southern Iraq. They would be at very serious risk. Iran has also threatened to shut down its oil exports in the event of a strike, which could have a devastating effect on the world's economies.
But if you believe the MoD's press office, British defence chiefs are not talking about any of these things. They have no anxieties about what might happen to British soldiers in Iraq, and are certainly not meeting to discuss what to do in the event that the US drops "bunker-buster" bombs tipped with nuclear warheads on Iran's nuclear facilities.
Last Sunday, a newspaper revealed that several of Britain's defence chiefs were going to meet to discuss the effects on British interests of a military strike on Iran by the United States to destroy that county's capacity to build a nuclear bomb. The story was categorically denied by Ministry of Defence officials, who told Sean Rayment, our Defence Correspondent, that there was "no truth in it whatsoever".
Yet those officials also told Rayment that by writing the story, he "had come very close to damaging national security". Asked how any story that was apparently false could possibly damage national security, the MoD officials changed tack: they admitted the story was correct in maintaining that there had been a meeting of defence chiefs - but, they insisted, an American strike on Iran had not been on the agenda.
It is, of course, no secret that the Bush administration has drawn up plans for a strike on Iran. As Seymour Hersh reports in The New Yorker tomorrow, many of the US officials opposed to a strike believe that its most immediate effect will be to generate an armed insurrection among the Shias in southern Iraq - precisely the region where British soldiers are concentrated. British soldiers are the most visible and easily accessible symbols of the American-led occupation in southern Iraq. They would be at very serious risk. Iran has also threatened to shut down its oil exports in the event of a strike, which could have a devastating effect on the world's economies.
But if you believe the MoD's press office, British defence chiefs are not talking about any of these things. They have no anxieties about what might happen to British soldiers in Iraq, and are certainly not meeting to discuss what to do in the event that the US drops "bunker-buster" bombs tipped with nuclear warheads on Iran's nuclear facilities.
Why all the lies??
paraclete answered on 04/09/06:why repeat all of this wasn't once enough?
Who is lying and how can you tell? | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 04/06/06 - Shall we riot? ![]()
The old media won't publish the offending Mohammed cartoons but this is no big deal?
paraclete answered on 04/06/06:yes, let's riot, let's tear down their offices, smash their presses, burn their magazines, SMash ! SMAsh! SMASH!!! BURN!BURN!BURN! I HAVEN'T HAD A GOOD RIOT IN A LONG TIME | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 04/06/06 - A just peace or no peace - A first class article.
> A just peace or no peace.
>
> Israeli unilateralism is a recipe for conflict - as is the west's
> racist refusal to treat Palestinians as equals
>
> Ismail Haniyeh
> Friday March 31, 2006
> The Guardian
>
> Do policymakers in Washington and Europe ever feel ashamed of their
> scandalous double standards? Before and since the Palestinian
> elections in January, they have continually insisted that Hamas
> comply with certain demands. They want us to recognise Israel, call
> off our resistance, and commit ourselves to whatever deals Israel
> and the Palestinian leadership reached in the past.
>
>
> But we have not heard a single demand of the Israeli parties that
> took part in this week's elections, though some advocate the
> complete removal of the Palestinians from their lands. Even Ehud
> Olmert's Kadima party, whose Likud forebears frustrated every effort
> by the PLO to negotiate a peace settlement, campaigned on a
> programme that defies UN security council resolutions. His
> unilateralism is a violation of international law. Nevertheless no
> one, not even the Quartet - whose proposals for a settlement he
> continues to disregard, as his predecessor Ariel Sharon did - has
> dared ask anything of him.
>
>
> Olmert's unilateralism is a recipe for conflict. It is a plan to
> impose a permanent situation in which the Palestinians end up with a
> homeland cut into pieces made inaccessible because of massive Jewish
> settlements built in contravention of international law on land
> seized illegally from the Palestinians. No plan will ever work
> without a guarantee, in exchange for an end to hostilities by both
> sides, of a total Israeli withdrawal from all the land occupied in
> 1967, including East Jerusalem; the release of all our prisoners;
> the removal of all settlers from all settlements; and recognition of
> the right of all refugees to return.
>
>
> On this, all Palestinian factions and people agree, including the
> PLO, whose revival is essential so that it can resume its role in
> speaking for the Palestinians and presenting their case to the
> world.
>
>
> The problem is not with any particular Palestinian group but with
> the denial of our basic rights by Israel. We in Hamas are for peace
> and want to put an end to bloodshed. We have been observing a
> unilateral truce for more than a year without reciprocity from the
> Israeli side. The message from Hamas and the Palestinian Authority
> to the world powers is this: talk to us no more about recognising
> Israel's "right to exist" or ending resistance until you obtain a
> commitment from the Israelis to withdraw from our land and recognise
> our rights.
>
>
> Little will change for the Palestinians under Olmert's plan. Our
> land will still be occupied and our people enslaved and oppressed by
> the occupying power. So we will remain committed to our struggle to
> get back our lands and our freedom. Peaceful means will do if the
> world is willing to engage in a constructive and fair process in
> which we and the Israelis are treated as equals. We are sick and
> tired of the west's racist approach to the conflict, in which the
> Palestinians are regarded as inferior. Though we are the victims, we
> offer our hands in peace, but only a peace that is based on justice.
> However, if the Israelis continue to attack and kill our people and
> destroy their homes, impose sanctions, collectively punish us, and
> imprison men and women for exercising the right to self-defence, we
> have every right to respond with all available means.
>
>
> Hamas has been freely elected. Our people have given us their
> confidence and we pledge to defend their rights and do our best to
> run their affairs through good governance. If we are boycotted in
> spite of this democratic choice - as we have been by the US and some
> of its allies - we will persist, and our friends have pledged to
> fill the gap. We have confidence in the peoples of the world, record
> numbers of whom identify with our struggle. This is a good time for
> peace-making - if the world wants peace.
>
>
> · Ismail Haniyeh is the new Palestinian prime minister and a Hamas
> leader. Email: ihaniyyeh@hotmail.com
#####################################################
Please read it.
Tell us what you think ?
Is Ismail correct in what he is saying?
paraclete answered on 04/06/06:democracy is only democracy when it produces the result the US wants. | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 04/04/06 - Farm Workers need your help New amendments challenge immigration reform--send an immediate e-mail
Vote may occur as early as 2:30 today!
We need your immediate help. Late yesterday, Senator Chambliss (R-GA) submitted amendments which would render the AgJobs legislation unworkable. The Chambliss amendments would eliminate the opportunity of farm workers to earn permanent resident status, and instead would create an unworkable "report to deport" program. His proposal offers no prospect for stabilizing the work force with legal-resident workers.
For those workers who might have had an interest in becoming blue-card guestworkers under his proposal, the obstacles--including heavy fines and unrealistic work requirements--would make the program inaccessible. His amendments also would eliminate important labor protections in the H-2A temporary foreign agricultural worker program, including slashing wage protections for US and foreign guestworkers. This amendment would turn back the clock to the pre-1966 days when migrant farmworkers were excluded from the minimum wage protections. These amendments are very similar to the amendments Chambliss offered last April which lost by a vote of 77-21.
Please make a difference to farm workers on this vital bill by immediately contacting your Senators to ask them to support the Senate Judiciary Committee’s bipartisan compromise bill—which includes the AgJobs amendment, oppose the Chambliss amendments, and oppose any amendments not supported by AgJobs primary sponsors.
(Senators Craig, Kennedy and Feinstein)
We need you to take immediate action on this vital issue. The vote could occur as early as 2:30 this afternoon.
Take Action at: http://www.ufwaction.org/campaign/chambliss
Tell-A-Friend: Tell your friends about this
==== paraclete answered on 04/06/06:There is nothing else for it, you will just have to stop using slave labour. I wonder how competitive US agriculture would be without the illegal immigrant underclass and slave labour, why you might even have to import from the disadvantaged countries these workers come from in the first place.
I applaud moves for the US to get realistic about their obligations, both internally and externally | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 04/05/06 - Ethics scandal rocks GOP ... ... ... It is from, January, but has the weight been lifted off the burden of the ethics scandal currently rocking the GOP?
“First Read” is a daily memo prepared by NBC News’ political unit, for NBC News, analyzing the morning’s political news. Please let us know what you think. Drop us a note at FirstRead@MSNBC.com. To bookmark First Read, click here.
• Wednesday, January 4, 2006 | 9:30 a.m. ET
From Elizabeth Wilner, Mark Murray and Huma Zaidi
First glance
Lobbyist Jack Abramoff, straight out of central casting with his dapper wardrobe and Godfather quips, has become the face for a side of Washington -- lobbyists, lawmakers, staffers and other federal officials -- that appears to have lost sight of the interests of the Americans it purportedly represents. Having pleaded guilty in Washington yesterday to three felony counts of fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy to bribe officials, Abramoff is now expected to plea guilty in Miami today to additional counts of wire and mail fraud related to his purchase of a casino cruise company.
The extent of the Abramoff network and its effect on the midterm elections remains TBD. The multifaceted scandal may prove big enough to fuel a general anti-incumbent sentiment: 79% of the public thinks both parties are equally to blame for such ethical lapses, per the December NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, and although various state Democratic parties are highlighting local GOP officials' ties to Abramoff, we noticed that the party's House and Senate campaign committees refrained from jumping on the news yesterday, probably waiting to see what names (and party affiliations) come out.
Or, the scandal may cast a pall over the GOP as the party in power for the past 11 years. Or, it may wind up afflicting only those specifically involved.
But average folks living outside the Capitol Hill/K Street cab zone -- even the cynics who profess to not be surprised at such "business as usual" -- probably sense that this isn't the way their government is supposed to work. And in an era of wall-to-wall news coverage, implicated parties can't reassure themselves that most of the public will never know who this Abramoff guy is. remember that Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby was recognized by 66% of those polled by NBC and the Wall Street Journal last November shortly after his indictment. At the time, our pollsters called that a remarkable degree of recognition for a low-profile aide. The media's intense focus on the West Virginia mining tragedy may keep Abramoff's name recognition below Libby's.
Encouraging comparisons (despite some real differences) between the upcoming midterms and the 1994 tsunami that swept Democrats out of power, the father of the Contract with America will address the Rotary Club of Washington today at 12:30 pm about "political fundraising, the current lobbyist scandal, the size of the Federal government, and what can be done to move power out of Washington," per the press release. Newt Gingrich is already calling for an election to permanently replace the ethically challenged Tom DeLay as majority leader, per the Washington Post.
What happened yesterday brought to mind a certain op-ed from USA Today last May: "The advantages of incumbency make it hard to lose a House seat, which may be comforting knowledge for lawmakers amid the current storm over ethics in Congress."
"Corporate executives and directors used to feel similarly insulated from shareholder unease. But then revelations about Enron, Global Crossing and Tyco touched off a chain of events leading to bankruptcies, perp walks, and the Sarbanes-Oxley crackdown on institutionalized misbehavior."
"Congress and Wall Street for the past decade have moved on parallel tracks... In theory, both corporate America and Congress always remained accountable to the people they serve. But in practice they were well insulated, with many corporate proxy votes no more consequential than another biennial election in a lopsided House district. Leaders in both realms became cocooned within layers of professionals - lobbyists, lawyers, consultants, flacks - whose own livelihoods depend on theirs, who have more direct access to them than the average voter or shareholder, and who put distance between them and the real world."
"Small wonder, then, that over time, their values might cease to reflect the values of those they serve. Both institutions have cultivated a set of ingrained habits that may encourage some in their ranks to forget appearances or skirt the rules out of ignorance, laziness, arrogance or flat-out corruption - to travel on a lobbyist's dime without finding out who's footing the bill; to put relatives on the payroll; to take shortcuts around financial reporting rules; or to pad the books to degrees that jeopardize their companies' solvency. It's not 'everybody does it,' but there's certainly an air of 'someone else is doing it, too.'"
"...Middle-class Americans are generally even-tempered, in favor of others getting their fair share but wanting the same in return. They want to feel that the institutions in which they're investing their hard-earned dollars and their closely held votes are actually earning them. In both corporate and governing America, they're simply looking for a level playing field with the far fewer but more powerful, better-connected interests... Just as news of accounting scams and lavish perks toppled corporate titans, the slow drip of revelations about how special interests influence Congress could yet galvanize the electorate to blast some of the top wheeler-dealers out of their fortified luxury bunkers."
Beyond the Abramoff story today, there's President Bush's push on Iraq and the war on terror. Bush crosses the river to participate in Pentagon briefings at 9:30 am and make a statement about the WOT at 11:35 am. NBC's Courtney Kube reports that Bush will be joined at his remarks by Vice President Cheney, Secretaries Rice and Rumsfeld, and General Pace. The White House says Bush will also make some remarks about the West Virginia mining tragedy.
Cheney gives a speech on the same topic at the conservative Heritage Foundation at 2:35 pm. NBC's Sarah Blackwill reports that in his remarks, Cheney will touch on his recent trip to the Middle East, progress in Afghanistan and Iraq, recent criticisms of Administration policy in the region, the Patriot Act, NSA surveillance, and humanitarian efforts in Pakistan. The White House's push against Democrats on the Patriot Act, reminiscent of the 2002 and 2004 campaigns, overlooks that a handful of Senate Republicans also opposed a permanent extension back in December.
Ethics: Abramoff
Abramoff in court yesterday: "Your honor, words will not be able to ever express how sorry I am for this, and I have profound regret and sorrow for the multitude of mistakes and harm I have caused. All of my remaining days, I will feel tremendous sadness and regret for my conduct and for what I have done. I only hope that I can merit forgiveness from the Almighty and from those I have wronged or caused to suffer. I will work hard to earn that redemption."
Abramoff attorney Abbe Lowell: "Eighteen months ago, Mr. Abramoff first made contact with prosecutors to admit his wrongdoing and to seek forgiveness from those he has wronged. He intends to continue to work with the Justice Department and others to fully resolve all matters of interest, to provide restitution to anyone he has harmed, and to seek absolution from all."
Also, today, Abramoff "is expected to plead guilty to charges involving fraudulent financial dealings in seeking to purchase a Miami cruise ship company, a deal that was largely unrelated to his tribal lobbying," reports the Boston Globe. On the Washington-based charges, Abramoff is facing up to 30 years in jail, which could be cut to 9 ½ with the possibility of further reduction for cooperating with the government, and is expected to pay almost $27 million in fines.
"Making the bribery case especially striking -- and worrisome for members of Congress -- is that some of it elements include transactions that occur in Washington every day," says the Wall Street Journal, which notes, "Mr. Abramoff says he has information that could implicate 60 lawmakers."
"Over the past six years, Abramoff and Indian tribes he represented gave more than $4.4 million in political contributions to more than 240 lawmakers, nearly two-thirds to Republicans," says USA Today.
Several papers emphasize Republican lawmakers' efforts to distance themselves from Abramoff, leading with Speaker Dennis Hastert's donating to charity the contributions he received from Abramoff's clients:
The analyses from the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times highlight Abramoff's involvement in Tom DeLay's K Street Project, designed to force industries and interest groups to hire more GOP lobbyists.
The AP’s analysis: “While the full dimensions of the corruption probe are not yet clear, some political consultants and analysts are already comparing its damage potential to the 1992 House banking scandal that led to the retirement or ouster of 77 lawmakers.
A House GOP campaign committee spokesperson tells the Washington Post "that if Abramoff's revelations ensnare only one lawmaker and some unknown staff members, Democrats will have little chance of sparking a political revolt" in November. The story mentions Democrats who have received big contributions from Abramoff's associates, including Senators Daschle and Reid and Rep. Patrick Kennedy.
Nevertheless, says Roll Call, “nothing released Tuesday by Justice gives any hint that the inquiry is dealing with Congressional Democrats or their former staffers, a handful of whom went to work for Abramoff when he was employed by the firm Greenberg Traurig.”
The AP details each charge against Abramoff and provides examples of how he violated the law.
MSNBC.com has a comprehensive look at those connected to the Abramoff case and a timeline of key dates in the case.
The Los Angeles Times recounts Abramoff’s journey from high-school weightlifter, to movie producer, to powerful lobbyist.
The Washington Post's Style section looks at "Washington's hottest literary art form: the charging document."
Ethics: DeLay
Written statement from DeLay spokesperson Kevin Madden in reaction to the Abramoff plea: "
1. Mr. DeLay believes everyone should cooperate with Department of Justice officials.
2. Earlier this year, Mr. DeLay directed his counsel to contact DoJ and inform officials of his willingness to cooperate, should that be required.
3. Mr. DeLay believes any inquiry will lead to his full and eventual exoneration. All Mr. DeLay's actions were fully vetted, promptly and publicly disclosed in accordance with House rules."
Roll Call notes that Abramoff’s guilty plea has brought the Justice Department’s corruption investigation into DeLay’s inner circle. “DeLay… is not named in the plea documents. But a former top aide, Tony Rudy, is one of the Congressional staffers who has become ensnared in the probe, and the plea deal spells out official actions that Rudy allegedly took in exchange for $50,000 in payments to his wife while he was still on DeLay’s payroll.”
"The link to DeLay is at least the third to emerge in a 20-month investigation of Abramoff's ties with lawmakers, and it comes as DeLay... fights separate money-laundering charges in Texas that forced him to step down as House majority leader," says Bloomberg. "Abramoff's agreement to cooperate may scuttle DeLay's chances of returning as majority leader, because the Texas Republican may continue to be under a legal shadow for many more months.
President George W. Bush said in an interview with Fox News Channel on Dec. 14 that he hoped Delay would be able to reclaim the majority leader's post because of his success in passing legislation."
The Dallas Morning News questions whether Abramoff's plea deal could implicate DeLay. While his attorney denies that he did anything wrong, a trip DeLay and Abramoff took to the Mariana Islands could prove problematic for him. It was in the Marianas that DeLay called Abramoff one of his "closest and dearest friends."
"The Marianas connection could also provide investigators an interesting trail. Mr. DeLay sought to protect the garment industry on the islands, an American commonwealth in the Pacific, from U.S. labor laws."
On a non-Abramoff note, Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle was busy yesterday filing two sets of papers in the DeLay money-laundering case, NBC's Chip Reid reports. First, Earle issued subpoenas looking for links between Abramoff and fundraising by DeLay. DeLay supporters call it a fishing expedition. Second, Earle filed his response to DeLay's recent appeal in which he demanded the "extraordinary" step of either immediate dismissal of all charges or immediate trial. Reid notes that Earle's response was typically combative: "To treat Mr. DeLay's case as extraordinary merely because of the leadership position that he once held in Congress would violate the core principle of American government as a government of laws rather than men. This is a bold attempt to bully his way to the very front of the line simply and solely to serve his own political interests and ambitions."
Ethics: Ney
Statement from Ohio Rep. Bob Ney (R) in reaction to the Abramoff plea: "At the time I dealt with Jack Abramoff, I obviously did not know, and had no way of knowing, the self-serving and fraudulent nature of Abramoff's activities." Ney's office: "The Congressman intends to cooperate with the continuing investigation and to separate truth from fiction. At the end of the process, the truth will show that Congressman Ney did nothing wrong."
Ney "is in the spotlight as ‘Representative #1’ - the unnamed lawmaker in federal court documents released Tuesday who allegedly received favors from [Abramoff] in return for supporting legislation beneficial to one of Abramoff's clients… Ironically, Ney won his first elective office by defeating a Democrat who had been tainted by scandal - Wayne Hays.” – Los Angeles Times
The court documents in Abramoff’s guilty plea also refer to Neil Volz, Ney’s chief of staff, who was “cited for violating a restriction barring former aides from lobbying their bosses for a year after leaving the public payroll. The documents state that the aide intervened with Ney on behalf of Abramoff client Foxcom, which was seeking a contract to provide wireless services to the House. Foxcom, which has since been renamed MobileAccess, obtained the contract with Ney's approval.” – Los Angeles Times
The liberal Campaign for America's Future has announced that it will begin running radio and billboard ads (a small ad buy in the tens of thousands of dollars) next week linking Ney to the scandal and Abramoff's guilty plea.
Security politics
Relegated to Page 2 (at best), several papers cover Bush's first volley of the year at Democrats for opposing him on the Patriot Act extension:
New York Times
USA Today
Washington Post
Even though Bush signed an anti-torture bill last week, there is a provision which gives him room to bypass the law in special situations, which worries some who feel he may not follow the law, reports the Boston Globe. However, the "president and his aides argued that the Constitution gives the commander in chief the authority to bypass the 1978 law when necessary to protect national security. They also argued that Congress implicitly endorsed that power when it authorized the use of force against the perpetrators of the attacks."
The Alito nomination
The Washington Times notes how liberal interest groups like People for the American Way seem to have failed to convince Americans that Alito should not be confirmed.
"Every major poll indicates that far more voters think Judge Alito should be confirmed than think he should be rejected. Though that support generally is lower than it was for John G. Roberts Jr. before his confirmation for chief justice in the fall, it is on par with the public support for Supreme Court nominees during the past 20 years."
A group called Italian Americans for Judge Sam Alito, Jr. holds a press conference today at 10:00 am at the National Italian American Foundation. The group will announce events in Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island.
People for the American Way and the Alliance for Justice release their "final, pre-hearing" report on Alito at the National Press Club at 11:00 am.
Bush's sixth year
The Washington office of economic research firm International Strategy & Investment writes in a memo to clients, "Bush needs an approval rating around 50% for his first-term formula to work. 50% means he can keep the loyalty of moderate Republicans and pressure red state Democratic senators. While Bush has moved from the high 30s to the low 40s, we doubt Bush will rise enough to allow him to push his agenda. The factors that drive his approval will be in flux -- Iraq, the biggest weight, should be marginally less of a drag if the expected troop drawdown begins; scandals are likely to increase as the Abramoff investigation matures (although this is much more of a negative for congressional Republicans than for the Bush administration) and the Libby case goes to trial, but the DeLay trial may pose less of a risk; and the mid-cycle slowdown will increase voters' already high anxiety about the economy."
More on the GOP agenda
House Republicans have set February 1 as the date for the vote on the budget reconciliation bill.
The Wall Street Journal looks at Congress' efforts to tackle the growing issue of US workers lacking company-provided retirement plans, who are mainly "Hispanic, young, single, less-educated and lower-paid."
It's the economy
Bloomberg has coverage of the Fed's suggestion that it's nearly finished with raising interest rates, and the resulting market rally yesterday afternoon.
The midterms
Heading into the 2006 elections, the Republican campaign committees have a 2-to-1 cash advantage over their Democratic counterparts, says The Hill. "According to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission late last month, noted on politicalmoneyline.com, the Republicans ended November with $61 million in the bank compared to the Democrats’ $41 million."
Although The Hill article contains criticism of the Democratic National Committee's fundraising thus far, DNC spokesperson Karen Finney tells First Read that the committee raised over $51 million in 2005 -- a 20% increase from the amount it raised in 2003. Finney adds that the DNC spent $7 million in last year's Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races, and gave an additional $2 million to the Democratic Senate and House campaign committees.
The Chronicle also reports that White House aide Steve Schmidt has been tapped to run Schwarzenegger’s re-election campaign. paraclete answered on 04/06/06:Now let me see if I have this straight, you expect politicans to have ethics? | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 04/05/06 - Delay Dedone Redux
Hello:
Da do you remember when I suggested that Delay was dedone?? Well I da do!
How about this prognostication? The Republicrats will lose their majority in the house.
da da excon
paraclete answered on 04/06/06:sounds about right, these things sway back and forth in the breeze | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 04/03/06 - Help Can someone please furnish the quote or quotes where Bush tied Saddam to 9/11? I'd really like to know.
Steve paraclete answered on 04/04/06:like WMD he couldn't prove it | | Question/Answer | | BeelzeBUSH asked on 04/04/06 - Runner-up Picture Of The Year
http://www.poyi.org/63/11/02.php
First place picture was the Marines loading the casket carrying the body of 2nd Lt. James Cathey's into a cargo plane. The runner-up picture shows the wife with the body all night before the burial the next day. Of course these pictures are sad. Third place was just John Kerry with an expression of exasperation waiting for GW's inaugural to start.
My heart goes out the families that lost loved ones. I know the hurt they suffer is beyond words. My hope for all our soldiers is G-dspeed for a safe trip back home soon.
George
paraclete answered on 04/04/06:George I know you have something better to do than to pour out pathos so why don't you do it? | | Question/Answer | | BeelzeBUSH asked on 04/04/06 - Iran next? ![]()
paraclete answered on 04/04/06:George doesn't have to win this time so no war, just more of the same, like Iraq he will leave Iran to the next guy, like a legacy of his Presidentcy | | Question/Answer | | HerrAirhorn asked on 04/02/06 - The Illusion the War Works Cut and Paste
"Recently an Iraqi policy expert said that there was good news from that country, namely, a *balance of terror* has been achieved on the ground. Two years ago the Sunni militias were preying on the Shias, and now the Shias have just as many militias fighting back. The reason this stalemate is "good news" is that a balance of terror opens the way for negotiations.
If hatred is equal, peace might be born. Such are the illusions of war.
The actual good news is that the greatest illusion of all has suffered a huge blow. This is ***the illusion that war works***. From the beginning the Iraqi war was an attempt on the part of neo-conservatives to prove that war still worked. By flexing American military power, they hoped to achieve anything this country wanted. If we wanted Saddam gone and instant democracy in Iraq, a quick little invasion should do the job. Nobody expected to be in Iraq three years later with the price of combat soaring to hundreds of billions of dollars (we were told at the outset that Iraqi oil would defray all our expenses, another illusion that has already died).
This war will not end as Vietnam did, with a large section of the public believing that the U.S. could not tolerate defeat and must continue to fight everywhere we wanted to. ***Iraq is already a defeat far worse than Vietnam***. That country became viable once its civil war ended and the Ho Chi Minh regime took over. Iraq has no fortunate future lying ahead. Whether or not civil war breaks out on a large scale, Iraq will be a broken country, open to foreign influence, rife with corruption, torn by sectarian divisions.
In our heart of hearts we know that we created this disaster. How can a good country be the cause of so much that's wrong? ***By using the tool of war***. War will be more discredited after this conflict ends. One cannot hope for American militarism to end also, because we are fatefully tied to the military-industrial complex. But this generation, already skeptical about war after Vietnam, only entered Iraq because of 9/11, and even then, with direct provocation from Arab terrorists, the ***Bush administration had to use deception, misinformation, and manipulation to get the public to go along with its "good" war***.....Deepak Chopra
So, we are defeated in war after three years by a bunch of "insurgents" whatever that really means. However, the war will go on and on just like Viet Nam.
paraclete answered on 04/03/06:we live in a world where the good news is more death so long as it's death of the right people.
Sadly the illusion stops when death steps in and we cannot reverse the process just by saying it's an illusion. In Iraq you have the illusion of progress, it went right along with saddam's illusion of WMD, and GWB's illusion of mission accomplished. If you wanted to defeat america how would you do it? Vietnam provided the lesson and someone learned that lesson. Sadly it wasn't the americans and so thirty years later they find themselves in the same situation, the possibility of defeat by a rag-tag army of "insurgents", who afterall are just people fighting an "invader" who would otherwise be known as "patriots". You can tell us all you want that they are foreigners but they exist because they have support. You forget the US was forged by such as these and they have the same determination. | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 04/01/06 - The fundamental divide between British Democracy and Unacceptable American Democracy vocalised by Lo
Perhaps the sharpest comment Rice heard came from former Foreign Secretary Lord Douglas Hurd CBE of Westwell., a Conservative Party stalwart (a Tory grandee!) who served under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and was among a panel of experts who heard Rice's speech on the need to encourage democracy around the world.
"It is quite possible to believe" that democracy is essential, Hurd said to the crowd after she spoke, but also to "believe that essentially the path must grow from the roots of its own society and that the killing of thousands of people, many of them innocent, is unacceptable whether committed by a domestic tyrant or for a good cause upon being invaded."
paraclete answered on 04/01/06:Yes indeed, but it falls on deaf ears since the American administration fervently believes the end justifies the means, even if it is earned with buckets of someoneelse's blood | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 04/01/06 - The origin of April Fool's Day? The Origin of April Fool's Day
Associated Press.
The mystery of the origin of April Fool's Day has finally been solved.
Joseph Boskin, a History professor at Boston University, has discovered that the celebration had begun during the Roman empire when a court jester had boasted to Emperor Constantine that the fools and jesters of the court could rule the kingdom better than the Emperor could.
In response, Constantine had decreed that the court fools would be given a chance to prove this boast, and he set aside one day of the year upon which a fool would rule the kingdom. The first year Constantine appointed a jester named Kugel as ruler, and Kugel immediately decreed that only the absurd would be allowed in the kingdom on that day. Therefore the tradition of April Fools was born.
So what do you know? In modern day america it's April Fool's Day every day. paraclete answered on 04/01/06:Very incitefull, and insightfull, as well, Mat. | | Question/Answer | | Mathatmacoat asked on 04/01/06 - Will this mean war? Last week Indonesia insulted Australia by publishing an offensice cartoon featuring Australian Prime Minister Howard. Not to be out done the Australian Murdoch newspapers have entered the fray with their own reply. Will this mean war?
Indonesian dingo cartoon 'offensive'
There is anger from both sides of federal politics over a cartoon in an Indonesian newspaper portraying Prime Minister as a dingo mounting a second dingo with the face of the Foreign Affairs Minister.
The cartoon was published in response to Australia's decision to give temporary protection visas to 42 West Papuans.
Indonesia has been highly critical of the decision and temporarily recalled its Ambassador from Australia last week.
Alexander Downer says the cartoon is tasteless.
Mr Downer says people can choose to publish tasteless and grotesque cartoons in a free society.
"I would have thought those countries in our society fell way below standards of public taste," he said.
"I think a lot of Australians would regard those kinds of publications as very offensive, but they're free to be offensive in a magazine in Indonesia if they wish to be."
Speaking on Southern Cross radio, the Federal Treasurer Peter Costello also criticised the cartoon.
"I think it's absolutely offensive," he said.
"I'm not sure which newspaper published this in Indonesia, but it doesn't do them any credit."
Labor's Kevin Rudd joined in the condemnation.
"I've seen that report this morning," he told ABC Radio.
"If the report is true, then that depiction I think is disgusting and disgraceful."
Opposition Leader Kim Beazley says the cartoon was published because of the way the Prime Minister has dealt with Indonesia.
"Because of the way the Prime Minister has handled these issues in the past, because of the way he's presented to Indonesians, which is somewhat different from what is really being done, we've got ourselves into this bind," he said.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Affairs Department has warned Australians that there have been protests outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta because of the decision to grant the temporary visas.
It says further demonstrations against the embassy or other Australian interests in Indonesia are possible and Australians should avoid them.
The Aussie relpy
http://network.news.com.au/image/0,10114,5132449,00.jpg
For those not attuned to the politics it depicts the result of indo-papuan relations with the Indonesian President perpetrating the act paraclete answered on 04/01/06:Oddly enough I had the feeling that it is war. Isn't that usually preceded by the withdrawal of ambassadors and insults on both sides. What the Indonesians fail to realise is they have much to loose by pursuing this course.
Australia could easily switch from supporting their soveriegnty of Papua to opposing them and supporting seperatists. The last time that happened in Indonesia they lost East Timor, which is still a raw nerve for the Indonesians.
Any attack by Indonesia would bring into operation the ANZUS Treaty, not a pretty thought for either the Indonesians or the United States. Only last week the Australians had some target practice for laser guided bombs when they sunk the North Korean vessel Pong Soo, seen in retrospect, one wonders at the timing. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 03/31/06 - Be afraid... "In Africa, drought continues for the sixth consecutive year, adding terribly to the toll of famine victims.
During 1972 record rains in parts of the U.S., Pakistan and Japan caused some of the worst flooding in
centuries. In Canada's wheat belt, a particularly chilly and rainy spring has delayed planting and may
well bring a disappointingly small harvest. Rainy Britain, on the other hand, has suffered from
uncharacteristic dry spells the past few springs. A series of unusually cold winters has gripped the
American Far West, while New England and northern Europe have recently experienced the mildest
winters within anyone's recollection.
As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing
number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological
fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from
place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.
Telltale signs are everywhere..."
From: Another Ice Age?, Time Magazine, Monday, Jun. 24, 1974
Fast forward to today...
Study finds `classic global warming' over Antarctica
Los Angeles Times
Published March 31, 2006
In the winter sky over Antarctica, scientists have detected a vast cap of steadily warming air, in the first sign that record levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may be trapping heat above the ice sheets of the South Pole.
The temperature of the winter air over Antarctica has been rising at a rate three times faster than the world as a whole, the researchers reported Thursday in the journal Science.
By analyzing 30 years of high-altitude weather balloon records, meteorologists at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge concluded that temperatures in the polar troposphere, the dense layer of air reaching from the surface to an altitude of about 5 miles, have risen by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit since the early 1970s.
"We have the largest regional warming on Earth at the tropospheric level," said climate specialist John Turner, who led the research team.
In their study, Turner and his colleagues drew on daily temperature records from 1971 to 2003 kept by eight international research stations that rim the continent and the U.S. station at the South Pole. It was the first time anyone had been able to collate all the high-altitude atmosphere readings.
When the researchers examined the data, they not only saw evidence of winter season warming throughout the troposphere, but a cooling in the stratosphere above, a layering effect that researchers predict as a consequence of greenhouse warming.
"We have the classic global warming signal," Turner said. "It is like the blanket on the bed: When we wrap the Earth with a blanket of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane, we trap heat under it at the expense of the atmosphere above, which then cools."
*******************************************************
Forget that in 1974 the climate had been cooling for 3 decades with no end in sight, though today's report says it's been getting warmer in Antarctica since 1971 - anyone know the temperature in Antarctica? paraclete answered on 03/31/06:what you have uncovered is the journalists ability to write crap about anything | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 03/31/06 - Here's something I don't understand. On one hand we have the vast majority of the members in Congress on both sides of the aisle against the Dubai prts deal... and correctly so. The reason that so many were against the deal was because of scurity issues that have not been answered and the threat of terrorism. And these are valid concerns.
On the other hand, we have many of those same members of Congress who are in favor of the immigration amnesty plan passed by the Senate yesterday. Many supporters of the plan support it because of the cheap labor it brings in. But the plan does nothing to secure our borders and mitigate the threat of terrorism.
Why are the same people who are so concerned with secure ports so unconcerned with secure borders? Isn't it the same risk?
Notice that I'm not naming specific names here. I think there are people ob BOTH sides of the aisle who are guilty of this... shall we say... discrepancy, and I hold the GOP members who are being so two-sided on this as responsible as the DNC members.
Does anybody have a reconcilliation of these two stances? Or am I right to wonder at the discrepancy?
Opinions, please. paraclete answered on 03/31/06:what you have identified is phragmatism, the ability to be two faced on any issue. This is the essential quality of a politician, the ability to sail under a flag of convience. | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 03/31/06 - Rediscovering President Bush George Bush describes himself:
I'm a mountain bike guy.
I'm the kind of fellow, when I -- when we say something, I mean it.
I'm an optimistic fellow.
I'm a Methodist.
I'm so optimistic about the future
I'm more worried about the fellow looking for the job. That's what I'm worried about.
I'm working hard to unite the country.
It will be up to future Presidents to decide the future of Iraq
Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- the guy lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. I look forward to sitting on the porch.
Congress effectively endorsed the program of eavesdropping without warrants under its authorization of military action against al Qaeda.
I'm mindful of your civil liberties and so I had all kinds of lawyers review the process.
The program involved a "known al Qaeda suspect, making a phone call into the United States.
I'm coming to a lot of your states" to promote allowing younger workers to divert some of their Social Security taxes into bonds and stocks.
My proposed guest worker initiative will strengthen border security and help the economy.
We would much rather have security guards chasing down terrorists or drug runners or drug smugglers than people coming to work, and so, therefore, I think a guest worker program is important.
I'm for medical liability at the federal level.
And a little peep into his mind is provided for us when he said:
No question that the enemy has tried to spread sectarian violence. They use violence as a tool to do that.
If the Iranians were to have a nuclear weapon they could proliferate.
After the bombing, most Iraqis saw what the perpetuators of this attack were trying to do." —George W. Bush, on the bombing of the Golden Mosque of Samarra in Iraq, March 13, 2006, Washington, D.C.
I believe that a prosperous, democratic Pakistan will be a steadfast
partner for America, a peaceful neighbor for India, and a force for freedom and moderation in the Arab world. (Identifying Pakistan as an Arab country!)
People don't need to worry about security. This deal wouldn't go forward if we were concerned about the security for the United States of America.
And I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British company.
I think it's really important for this great state of baseball to reach out to people of all walks of life to make sure that the sport is inclusive. The best way to do it is to convince little kids how to—the beauty of playing baseball. (Ask Barry “Beautiful” Bonds!)
I like my buddies from west Texas. I liked them when I was young, I liked them then I was middle-age, I liked them before I was president, and I like them during president, and I like them after president.
He was a state sponsor of terror. In other words, the government had declared, you are a state sponsor of terror.
I'll be glad to talk about ranching, but I haven't seen the movie. I've heard about it. I hope you go — you know — I hope you go back to the ranch and the farm is what I'm about to say.
It's a heck of a place to bring your family." (on New Orleans)
You took an oath to defend our flag and our freedom, and you kept that oath underseas and under fire.
As you can possibly see, I have an injury myself — not here at the hospital, but in combat with a cedar. I eventually won. The cedar gave me a little scratch. As a matter of fact, the Colonel asked if I needed first aid when she first saw me. I was able to avoid any major surgical operations here, but thanks for your compassion, Colonel. (Visiting with wounded veterans from the Amputee Care Center)
[I]t's a myth to think I don't know what's going on. It's a myth to think that I'm not aware that there's opinions that don't agree with mine, because I'm fully aware of that.
I mean, there was a serious international effort to say to Saddam Hussein, you're a threat. And the 9/11 attacks extenuated that threat, as far as I-concerned. (Tying Saddam to 9-11, again!)
I think we are welcomed. But it was not a peaceful welcome. (On Cheney’s pre-war assertion that the United States would be welcomed in Iraq as liberators)
Those who enter the country illegally violate the law.
As a matter of fact, I know relations between our governments is good.
“Wow! Brazil is big." (After being shown a map of Brazil by Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva)
Bin Laden says his own role is to tell Muslims, quote, 'what is good for them and what is not.'"
I think it's important to bring somebody from outside the system, the judicial system, somebody that hasn't been on the bench and, therefore, there's not a lot of opinions for people to look at." (On the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court – The American people disagreed with him)
We look forward to hearing your vision, so we can more better do our job. That's what I'm telling you.
If it were to rain a lot, there is concern from the Army Corps of Engineers that the levees might break. And so, therefore, we're cautious about encouraging people to return at this moment of history. (Sept. 19, 2005!!!)
Listen, I want to thank leaders of the — in the faith — faith-based and community-based community for being here.
So please give cash money to organizations that are directly involved in helping save lives — save the life who had been affected by Hurricane Katrina.
I can't wait to join you in the joy of welcoming neighbors back into neighborhoods, and small businesses up and running, and cutting those ribbons that somebody is creating new jobs.
Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job.
We've got a lot of rebuilding to do. First, we're going to save lives and stabilize the situation. And then we're going to help these communities rebuild. The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch.
My thoughts are, we're going to get somebody who knows what they're talking about when it comes to rebuilding cities.
Americans should be prudent in their use of energy during the course of the next few weeks. Don't buy gas if you don't need it.
It's totally wiped out. ... It's devastating, it's got to be doubly devastating on the ground." —
"The best place for the facts to be done is by somebody who's spending time investigating it.
I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep on the soil of a friend.
I was going to say he's a piece of work, but that might not translate too well. Is that all right, if I call you a 'piece of work'? (To Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg)
The relations with, uhh — Europe are important relations, and they've, uhh — because, we do share values. And, they're universal values, they're not American values or, you know — European values, they're universal values. And those values — uhh — being universal, ought to be applied everywhere.
You see, not only did the attacks help accelerate a recession, the attacks reminded us that we are at war.
And the second way to defeat the terrorists is to spread freedom. You see, the best way to defeat a society that is — doesn't have hope, a society where people become so angry they're willing to become suiciders, is to spread freedom, is to spread democracy.
It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of — and the allegations — by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble — that means not tell the truth. (On Amnesty International report on prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay)
See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.
We discussed the way forward in Iraq, discussed the importance of a democracy in the greater Middle East in order to leave behind a peaceful tomorrow.
I think younger workers — first of all, younger workers have been promised benefits the government — promises that have been promised, benefits that we can't keep. That's just the way it is.
It means your own money would grow better than that which the government can make it grow. And that's important.
I can only speak to myself. (!)
It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm's way.
We expect the states to show us whether or not we're achieving simple objectives — like literacy, literacy in math, the ability to read and write.
He understands the need for a timely write of the constitution.
Well, we've made the decision to defeat the terrorists abroad so we don't have to face them here at home. And when you engage the terrorists abroad, it causes activity and action.
But Iraq has — have got people there that are willing to kill, and they're hard-nosed killers. And we will work with the Iraqis to secure their future.
I appreciate my love for Laura.
We have enough coal to last for 250 years, yet coal also prevents an environmental challenge.
Part of the facts is understanding we have a problem, and part of the facts is what you're going to do about it.
I'm going to spend a lot of time on Social Security. I enjoy it. I enjoy taking on the issue. I guess, it's the Mother in me.
We look forward to analyzing and working with legislation that will make — it would hope — put a free press's mind at ease that you're not being denied information you shouldn't see.
"I want to thank you for the importance that you've shown for education and literacy." —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 13, 2005
"I understand there's a suspicion that we—we're too security-conscience." —George W. Bush, Washington D.C., April 14, 2005
"If they pre-decease or die early, there's an asset base to be able to pass on to a loved one." —George W. Bush, on Social Security money held in private accounts, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, March 30, 2005
[I'm] occasionally reading, I want you to know, in the second term." —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., March 16, 2005
"In this job you've got a lot on your plate on a regular basis; you don't have much time to sit around and wander, lonely, in the Oval Office, kind of asking different portraits, 'How do you think my standing will be?'" —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., March 16, 2005
"In terms of timetables, as quickly as possible — whatever that means." —George W. Bush, on his time frame for shoring up Social Security, Washington D.C., March 16, 2005
"I like the idea of people running for office. There's a positive effect when you run for office. Maybe some will run for office and say, vote for me, I look forward to blowing up America. I don't know, I don't know if that will be their platform or not. But it's -- I don't think so. I think people who generally run for office say, vote for me, I'm looking forward to fixing your potholes, or making sure you got bread on the table." —George W. Bush, on elections in the Middle East, Washington, D.C., March 16, 2005
"I repeat, personal accounts do not permanently fix the solution." —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., March 16, 2005
"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table." —George W. Bush, Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 22, 2005
"If you're a younger person, you ought to be asking members of Congress and the United States Senate and the president what you intend to do about it. If you see a train wreck coming, you ought to be saying, what are you going to do about it, Mr. Congressman, or Madam Congressman?" —George W. Bush, Detroit, Mich., Feb. 8, 2005
"Because the — all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those — changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be — or closer delivered to what has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the — like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate — the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those — if that growth is affected, it will help on the red." —George W. Bush, explaining his plan to save Social Security, Tampa, Fla., Feb. 4, 2005
"You work three jobs? … Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that." —George W. Bush, to a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005 (Listen to audio)
"After all, Europe is America's closest ally." —George W. Bush, Mainz, Germany, Feb. 23, 2005
"Because he's hiding." —George W. Bush, responding to a reporter who asked why Osama bin Laden had not been caught, aboard Air Force One, Jan. 14, 2005
"I'm also mindful that man should never try to put words in God's mouth. I mean, we should never ascribe natural disasters or anything else to God. We are in no way, shape, or form should a human being, play God." —George W. Bush, ABC's 20/20, Washington D.C., Jan. 14, 2005
"I want to appreciate those of you who wear our nation's uniform for your sacrifice." —George W. Bush, Jacksonville, Fla., Jan. 14, 2005
"I speak plainly sometimes, but you've got to be mindful of the consequences of the words. So put that down. I don't know if you'd call that a confession, a regret, something." —George W. Bush, speaking to reporters, Washington, D.C., Jan. 14, 2005
"Who could have possibly envisioned an erection — an election in Iraq at this point in history?" —George W. Bush, at the white House, Washington, D.C., Jan. 10, 2005
"We need to apply 21st-century information technology to the health care field. We need to have our medical records put on the I.T." —George W. Bush, Collinsville, Ill., Jan. 5, 2005
"I believe we are called to do the hard work to make our communities and quality of life a better place." —George W. Bush, Collinsville, Ill., Jan. 5, 2005
Whatever else can be said about him, you have to agree that he and Yogi Berra are equally as impressive! paraclete answered on 03/31/06:so we know he is a dill, so what? | | Question/Answer | | Erewhon asked on 03/28/06 - Why don't the Minutemen and the anti-immigrant worker brigade do this? .......
The solution to the alleged problem of illegal immigrant workers is in the hands of American citizens. They could put an end to it if they were seriously concerned about it enough to do somehting baout it.
Immigrant workers only come to the USA because there are an estimated 12,000,000 jobs that American citizens will not do.
If concerned American citizens would go and fill those jobs themselves, there would be no work for illegals to do and they would stop coming.
Will you be out in the fields and orchards any day soon to help solve your problem, or would you rather the crops and harvests rot on the vine, fall from the tree, or stand unharvested in the field?
You got a better solution?
paraclete answered on 03/30/06:yes you could solve your immigrant problem, your welfare problem and your unemployment problem in one step | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 03/29/06 - Poll You've probably heard that Sharon Stone says Hillary is too sexy to be president. She said, among other things, "A woman should be past her sexuality when she runs. Hillary still has sexual power and I don't think people will accept that. It's too threatening."
So, a poll - not limited to male responses.
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Do you think Hillary is too sexy to be president? paraclete answered on 03/30/06:doesn't appeal to me either way | | Question/Answer | | JBodine asked on 03/28/06 - Anywhere else put up with this? The previous questions concerning immigration got me thinking.
Another country where a great many people are trying to get to is Israel. The influx from all around the world is astounding.
Does Israel welcome those who want to come in live in peace and make their own way? Absolutely.
Does America welcome those who want to come in and live in peace and make their own way? Absolutely.
Does Israel have a problem with illegal immigration? Judging from the caliber of the IDF troops that I've met, I'd have to give that one a big NO.
Does America have a problem with illegal immigration?
Uh-huh. Big one.
So why the difference? Does there NEED to be a difference? No, not at all. Surely there is no one (of rational mind) that has a problem with LEGAL immigration, from anywhere to anywhere. So why are those who oppose ILLEGAL immigration suddenly the villians? I suppose if I oppose murder, extortion, kidnapping, drinking and driving, etc. that I am a villian for wanted the EXISTING LAWS upheld?
Why the difference?
Sure Mexico and some other places suck, and the people there have legitimate needs. But, that is the problem of THOSE governments, NOT mine.
I ask again, where else could a person possibly get away with as much as illegal immigrants are getting away with here? Furthermore, what other country cares more about the feelings of NON-CITIZENS than of their own citizens and taxpayers?
DK paraclete answered on 03/29/06:These are good questions, but you know the basis of the problem lies in your national obscession with political correctness, you are more concerned about what others think than the orientals, and for this reason you go to exraordinary lengths to appear to be all things to all people. The rest of the world knows you are up yourselves, let's hope the realisation sinks in soon. | | Question/Answer | | HerrAirhorn asked on 03/28/06 - Third World War From Dailynews dot com:
"Eric Haney, a retired command sergeant major of the U.S. Army, was a founding member of Delta Force, the military's elite covert counter-terrorist unit. He culled his experiences for "Inside Delta Force" (Delta; $14), a memoir rich with harrowing stories, though in an interview, Haney declines with a shrug to estimate the number of times he was almost killed. (Perhaps the most high-profile incident that almost claimed his life was the 1980 failed rescue of the hostages in Iran.) Today, he's doing nothing nearly as dangerous: He serves as an executive producer and technical adviser for "The Unit," CBS' new hit drama based on his book, developed by playwright David Mamet. Even up against "American Idol," "The Unit" shows muscle, drawing 18 million viewers in its first two airings.
Since he has devoted his life to protecting his country in some of the world's most dangerous hot spots, you might assume Haney is sympathetic to the Bush administration's current plight in Iraq (the laudatory cover blurb on his book comes from none other than Fox's News' Bill O'Reilly). But he's also someone with close ties to the Pentagon, so he's privy to information denied the rest of us.
We recently spoke to Haney, an amiable, soft-spoken Southern gentleman, on the set of "The Unit."
Q: What's your assessment of the war in Iraq?
A: Utter debacle. But it had to be from the very first. The reasons were wrong. The reasons of this administration for taking this nation to war were not what they stated. (Army Gen.) Tommy Franks was brow-beaten and ... pursued warfare that he knew strategically was wrong in the long term. That's why he retired immediately afterward. His own staff could tell him what was going to happen afterward.
We have *fomented civil war* in Iraq. We have probably fomented internecine war in the Muslim world between the Shias and the Sunnis, and I think *Bush may well have started the third world war*, all for their own personal policies.
Q: What is the cost to our country?
A: For the first thing, our credibility is utterly zero. So we destroyed whatever credibility we had. ... And I say "we," because the American public went along with this. They voted for a second Bush administration out of *fear, so fear is what they're going to have from now on*.
Our military is completely consumed, so were there a real threat - thankfully, there is no real threat to the U.S. in the world, but were there one, we couldn't confront it. Right now, that may not be a bad thing, because that keeps Bush from trying something with Iran or with Venezuela.
The harm that has been done is *irreparable*..."
This seems to me to be a realistic assessment of the outcome of Bush's neo-Con philosoply implemented as the War in Iraq.... paraclete answered on 03/29/06:so what happened to the we can talk and chew gum at the same time, seems that was never true. It's nice to know that there are some Americans who are realistic about their countries capabilities, let's hope their voice prevails before there are any more adventurous attempts to impose democracy, a contradiction in terms, upon the Muslim world | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 02/24/06 - The Golden Dome Was the bombing of the golden dome at the Al-Askareyya Shrine Iran's Reichstag moment ? paraclete answered on 02/25/06:can't comment on how an event in Iraq impacts on Iran, excepting that the people of Iran are shiites, but as an event to shatter the Iraq society and to bring about chaos it is one of those days which live in infamy | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 02/24/06 - GOOGLE & CHINA:
"For the first time in what some fear will signal a growing trend, Google Inc. has banned and removed a mainstream news website from all its worldwide search engines, seemingly due to the website's reports on China's geopolitical affairs and military technology."
Source: Prison Planet.com (Propaganda Matrix)
Do you think this is a good move if it's true?
HANK
paraclete answered on 02/25/06:obviously it's a bad move, but what would you expect, money talks............ | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 02/16/06 - Young Moonbats Club at University of Washington make a horrible decision.
The University of Washington's student senate (minutes of the meeting here ) rejected a memorial for alumnus Gregory "Pappy" Boyington of "Black Sheep Squadron" fame amid concerns a military hero who shot down enemy planes was not the right kind of person to represent the school.
Student senator Jill Edwards, according to minutes of the student government's meeting last week, said she "didn't believe a member of the Marine Corps was an example of the sort of person UW wanted to produce."
Ashley Miller, another senator, argued "many monuments at UW already commemorate rich white men."
{btw ;he was Sioux ....and he did write a best-selling book but he was never really a rich man.He spent most of his last days wandering through Air Shows reliving the glory days, never in any grand luxury .}
Senate member Karl Smith amended the resolution to eliminate a clause that said Boyington "was credited with destroying 26 enemy aircraft, tying the record for most aircraft destroyed by a pilot in American Uniform," for which he was awarded the Navy Cross.
Smith, according to the minutes, said "the resolution should commend Colonel Boyington's service, not his killing of others."
The senate's decision was reported first by Seattle radio talk-host Kirby Wilbur of KVI, whose listeners were "absolutely incensed," according to producer Matt Haver.
Brent Ludeman, president of the university's College Republicans, told WND in an e-mail the decision "reflects poorly on the university."
"Pappy Boyington went beyond the call of duty to serve and protect this country – he simply deserves better," Ludeman said. "Just last year, the university erected a memorial to diversity. Why can't we do the same for Pappy Boyington and others who have defended our country?"
I gotta wonder about the left coast sometimes . This comes after the news of San Francisco's rejection of the retired USS Iowa . Even Dianne Feinstein was perplexed by that decision . I see that it will find a home in Stockton Ca. I was going to suggest that I'm sure NYC would not mind at all docking it next to USS Intrepid ;USS Edson;and the sub USS Growler .
paraclete answered on 02/20/06:I don't know about leftcoast I'm left right out on this one, is this a secret society like the skulls or just a bunch of ningnongs | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 02/16/06 - NEWS FLASH: Ireland declares war on France! Jacques Chirac, The French President, is sitting in
his office when his telephone rings.
"Hallo, Mr. Chirac!" a heavily accented voice said.
"This isPaddy Down at the Harp Pub in County Clare,
Ireland. I am ringing to inform you that we are
officially declaring war on ye!"
"Well, Paddy," Chirac replied, "This is indeed important news! How big is your army?"
"Right now," says Paddy, after a moment's calculation, "there is meself, me Cousin Sean, me next door neighbour Seamus, and the entire darts team from the pub. That makes eight!"
Chirac paused. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have
100,000 men in my army waiting to move on my command."
"Begoora!" says Paddy. "I'll have to ring you back."
Sure enough, the next day, Paddy calls again. "Mr.
Chirac, the war is still on. We have managed to get us some infantry equipment!"
"And what equipment would that be Paddy?" Chirac asks.
"Well, we have two combines, a bulldozer, and Murphy's farm tractor," answers Paddy.
Chirac sighs, amused. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I
have 6,000 tanks and 5,000 armored personnel carriers. Also, I have increased my army to 150,000 since we last spoke."
"Saints preserve us!" says Paddy. "I'll have to get
back to you."
Sure enough, Paddy rings again the next day. "Mr.
Chirac, the war is still on! We have managed to get ourselves airborne! We have modified Jackie McLaughlin's ultra-light with a couple of shotguns in
the cockpit, and four boys from the Shamrock Pub have
joined us as well!"
Chirac was silent for a minute and then cleared his
throat. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 100 bombers and 200 fighter planes. My military bases are surrounded by laser-guided, surface-to-air missile
sites. And since! we last spoke, I have increased my
army to 200,000!"
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" says Paddy, "I will have to ring you back."
Sure enough, Paddy calls again the next day. "Top o'
the mornin', Mr. Chirac! I am sorry to inform you that we have had to call off the war."
"Really? I am sorry to hear that," says Chirac. "Why
the sudden change of heart?"
"Well," says Paddy, "we had a long chat over a few
jars of Guinness, and decided there is no fooking way
we can feed 200,000 prisoners.
paraclete answered on 02/20/06:yes well Paddy's right of course, the French haven't won a war since, since, since,........... ah my history is shakey, but I don't remember when, must have been some half arsed european princeling | | Question/Answer | | drgade asked on 02/19/06 - A just received joke As President Bush gets off the helicopter in front of the White House, he is carrying a baby pig under each arm. The squared away Marine guard snaps to attention, salutes, and says: "Nice pigs, sir."
The President replies: "These are not pigs, they are authentic Texan
Razorback Hogs. I got one for Senator Ted Kennedy, and I got one for Senator John Kerry."
The squared away Marine again snaps to attention, salutes, and says, "Nice trade, sir."
Ah, the question: Was it a good trade? paraclete answered on 02/20/06:yes very good trade now what could he get for Dick Cheney, yah think, Yah all | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 02/12/06 - Drug War Deja vu
Hello drugwarriors:
Seems like you’ve snatched defeat from the jaws of victory once again. Bolivia has a new president who grew up as a coca farmer and is saying YES to coca production. Mr. Morales, a president who has a 74 percent approval rating, must be given a chance, some hardened Bolivian drug warriors are conceding.
A drug warrior from the Bush administration asked: "The $64,000 question with Morales is, will all the problems drift south to Bolivia and will we have to start all over again?"
Uhhh, I dunno if history counts or not, but yes.
Tell me why you think we should start all over again for the millionth time.
excon
paraclete answered on 02/13/06:lets not worry about gun boat diplomacy with Iran, ex, when the perfect target presents itself and as they are not Muslims whose going to care if the US invades. Time for some off shore target practice so those cruisers and subs will be able to hit what they aim at next time, hey, you could waste the place and no one would know | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 02/11/06 - RATHER SHOCKING: "The interests behind the Bush Administration, such as the CFR, the Bilderberger Group, and the Trilateral Commission—founded by Brzezinski for David Rockefeller—have prepared for and are now moving to implement open world dictatorship within the next five years. They are not fighting against terrorists. They are fighting against citizens."
Quote by Dr. Johannes B. Koeppl, PhD, former German defense ministry official and advisor to former NATO Secretary-General Manfred Werner.
Source: Ending America
Do you know anything about this?
HANK
paraclete answered on 02/12/06:http://www.bilderberg.org/trilat.htm | | Question/Answer | | purplewings asked on 01/20/06 - Bin Laden and a possible truce WASHINGTON - Rejecting a suggestion by Osama bin Laden
of a negotiated truce in the war on terror, Vice President Dick Cheney said there was only one way to deal with terrorists. "I think you have to destroy them," Cheney said.
The vague offer of a truce — coupled with a threat of another attack on the U.S. — was made in an audiotape released by the Arab television network Al-Jazeera. It brought new attention to the al-Qaida leader after a yearlong lull in his public statements.
U.S. security officials said Thursday there were currently no plans to raise the nation's security threat level because of the new tape.
Counterterror officials said they have seen no specific
or credible intelligence to indicate an upcoming al-Qaida attack. Nor have they noticed an uptick in terrorist communications "chatter" — although that can dramatically increase or decrease immediately before an attack.
On the tape, bin Laden warned that his fighters are preparing new attacks in the United States but offered the American people a "long-term truce" without specifying the conditions.
But Cheney, in a television interview, rejected that suggestion, saying"We don't negotiate with terrorists."
"I think you have to destroy them," he told Fox News Channel. "It's the only way to deal with them."
The tape prompted increased security at Los Angeles International Airport and other precautions at the city's port and water and power facilities.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060120/ap_on_go_ot/us_al_qaida_tape
Does anyone think we should try talking to Osama? Would it help settle the terrorists down? Could any good come from a discussion with this man?
paraclete answered on 01/29/06:the good that might come is that if a dialogue is commenced Osama will eventually expose his location and knowing where he is is better than not knowing also it may cause some terrorists to cool it a while to see what comes of it.
I don't think legitimising osama in any way is a good idea but why not talk | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 01/26/06 - Hamas
Hello:
Well, that's a fine kettle of fish you've gotten us into, Ollie.
excon
paraclete answered on 01/29/06:yes more islamic ratbags in a position of power | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 01/28/06 - JUST WONDERING ... ... if you think it's time to reinstate Selective Service (the draft)?
HANK paraclete answered on 01/29/06:definately, all them good ole boys need a little discipline in their lives | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 01/08/06 - Supporting the Troops?
Hello wrongwingers:
Yeah, I support the troops too. But, instead of putting a bumper sticker on my car (so my neighbors will think highly of me), I wrote to my congressmen and demanded they give the Marines the body armor they needed to save lives.
Well, they didn't. I dunno why. Maybe they needed the money for a submarine or something. And, your sons died.....
So, what are you GOING TO DO, about your governments laze fare interest in your sons lives? Put a bumper sticker on your car?
excon
paraclete answered on 01/08/06:hey I'll follow the government's lead and do nothing | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 01/07/06 - US Government Opening your Snail Mail WASHINGTON - ""In the 50 years that Grant Goodman has known and corresponded with a colleague in the Philippines he never had any reason to suspect that their friendship was anything but spectacularly ordinary.
But now he believes that the relationship has somehow sparked the interest of the Department of Homeland Security and led the agency to place him under surveillance.
Last month Goodman, an 81-year-old retired University of Kansas history professor, received a letter from his friend in the Philippines that had been opened and resealed with a strip of dark green tape bearing the words “by Border Protection” and carrying the official Homeland Security seal.""
Any Comments? paraclete answered on 01/08/06:sssh big brother is watching, write nothing down, have all conversations in the open air, use only public telephones, meet by night, change buses often, if you must use your car, change lanes often, make five left hand turns, run like a rabbit. sssh | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 01/05/06 - Things can change on a dime, can't they. With Ariel Sharon's stroke/cerebral hemorrhage yesterday, it has become pretty clear that he can no longer serve as Prime Minister of Israel. His powers have been transferred to his deputy, Ehud Ohlmert, pending the upcoming election in March. I am sure that all our prayers are with him, regardless of our political views of Sharon. May G-d bless him with a speedy and complete recovery. No matter what you can say about the guy, pro or con, he is a man of conviction who put his life on the line for his country and for the Jewish people repeatedly, and he deserves to be honored for that alone, if nothing else. And I personally think there's plenty more to honor him for as well.
Until yesterday, it was believed that Sharon's new Kadima party would win the upcoming election pretty handily, relegating Likud and Labor to secondary positions. Now, though, the political landscape has changed completely. Without Sharon at the head, the new party will pretty much whither and die. Names of possible PMs are already being floated, including Peres (ugghhh!), Ohlmert (a decent choice in my opinion), Netanyahu (I'm only lukewarm on this posibility) and Justice Minister Tzipy Livni (don't know enough about her to have an opinion). The future Israeli politics has just become very unclear. Sharon had no obvious successor, and the political fighting is going to be pretty fierce. Buth then, politics has always been a bloodsport in Israel, so that is nothing new.
On the international political front, Sharon was one of Bush's staunchest supporters, and certainly his strongest supporter in the Middle East. The loss of Sharon as an ally will certainly hurt (though probably not cripple) Bush's peace plans for the Israel/PA region. In my opinion, the chances of a lasting peace that also provides security for Israel just declined significantly, and that cannot be good for Bush, for the USA, or for Israel. One thing that Bush should learn from this, however, is the need to choose an heir apparent that the rest of the party can get behind. Right now, there is no obvious Bush-backed candidate for 2008. Bush needs to change that state of affairs.
Things have become very confused very quickly, and I have no idea how they are going to play out. I haven't been this clueless about what will happen next in Israeli politics in years.
Interesting times ahead... I just hope that it isn't in the Chinese sense of the word.
Elliot paraclete answered on 01/05/06:Elliot
In what other sense does that particular word operate, it's apparent that someone spoke that over the twenty first century, Yes, Sharon will be a loss to Israel and no doubt there will be a shift in direction. It's interesting that the old adversaries are being taken out of the game to be replaced with new adversaries. Perhaps this makes progress possible, perhaps not. | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 01/03/06 - What if they gave a war and nobody came?
Hello experts:
In the upside-down topsy turvy world of George Bush, this war might just be that one.
If we just leave Iraq, the war would end, wouldn't it? If it won't, who's gonna be fighting who? And, is staying there gonna stop that?
Help me out. I'm a little confused, just as are 60% of us. We still don't quite know what we're doing in Iraq.
Certainly a war worth fighting is a war worth understanding. Isn't it?
excon
paraclete answered on 01/03/06:ex what's to understand? it kick started the economy didn't it, did you understand Vietnam? so why understand Iraq? Irag is a complete success after all oil production is down 20% and electricity down 10%, oil prices are up and everyone, including Halliburton, is making money, excepting the poor sods who got killed of course | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 12/24/05 - The Constitution is not a suicide pact.
Hello wingers:
Just who amongst you believes that stupid crap? I’ve heard some real Fascist stuff recently, but this takes the cake. Hell, if I were you, I wouldn't admit it either.
Inherent in the statement above, is the belief that the Constitution is really foo foo document. That’s it’s really girly girly stuff. But, that when it comes time to REALLY protect us, you need to shitcan the Constitution.
If I believed that, then living here, being a staunch American, and even voting doesn’t mean anything. It’s all a house of cards. Our history and who we are, are meaningless.
Well, not to me. I like the Constitution. I think it means something. Oh, oh, by the way, in the oath of office, the president swore to protect the Constitution. He didn’t swear to protect you.
excon
paraclete answered on 12/25/05:now if I get you right a piece of paper is worth more than you are, so what makes the place you live any different to Russia and China, they have constitutions too! | | Question/Answer | | purplewings asked on 12/20/05 - Just for a laugh George Dubya haters make great companions no matter what you may think.
![]() paraclete answered on 12/20/05:that's right | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 12/20/05 - I heard the other day... What if George W. Bush had gone to medical school?
Would his new initials have been W.M.D.? paraclete answered on 12/20/05:clap..... clap....... clap
in case you don't know thats a slow hand clap | | Question/Answer | | purplewings asked on 12/20/05 - Sorry about the pics not showing up. Maybe the site owners decided not to accept any more pics from me because of all the ones I posted on the forum last month....
I apologize for wasting your time looking at a red x.
![]() paraclete answered on 12/20/05:well done PW how did you do it | | Question/Answer | | rivers asked on 12/16/05 - history and current events I barely passed history class so if you could answer a few of my questions maybe it would help me understand what is going on right now.
1) Where did all the Jewish people of the holocaust come from?
2) After the holocaust, whose idea was it to make a Jewish state in Israel out there in the middle of hostile territories, or is that where all the jewish people came from to begin with?
3) Was it a religious or political decision?
4) Do you have a problem with President Ahmadinejad's suggestion that the Jewish people of Israel be moved to Europe or another area where those responsible for the crimes of the holocaust should pay the price by giving them their own land?
5) Is there any acceptable place in Europe that the Jewish people could have their own state and peaceful existance?
6) Who is responsible for the holocaust?
7) How many Jewish people were murdered?
8) Why don't other ethnic groups who have suffered genocide get their own states?
paraclete answered on 12/18/05:1. the same place that all people come from, population increase over time
2. The creation of the Jewish State in Palistine is the result of the Balfour Agreement a proposal dating back to the first world war
3. the creation of the state of Israel was a political solution favoured by the Jews who had campaigned for a homeland for a long time
4. yes Palistine is the traditional homeland of The Jews. It is better that these people don't live among a people who have persecuted them
5. Unlikely, it would mean dispossing the traditional owners who existed in Europe before the Jews
6. The Nazi's in Germany
7. approximately six million out of an estimated population of twelve million.
8. perhaps they haven't sought it, the traditional home of the gypsies is Romania these days, but there are many places where the issue must be dealt with, the Kurds in Iraq and Turkey, the Armenians in Iran, the people of Dafur, the Christians in Indonesia, the people of Uganda, the Palistinians, the list goes on. | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 12/16/05 - 700 Mile Long Fence From Yahoo News:::
The House called for construction of a fence along parts of the U.S. border from the Pacific Coast to the Gulf of Mexico as a bill aimed at shutting down illegal immigration moved forward Thursday.
The two-layered fence, about 700 miles long, would be built in parts of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. The provisions, passed 260-159, put priority on construction near Laredo, Texas. The city is across the border from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, where warring drug cartels have been blamed for more than 140 murders this year.
Supporters said the fence would cut down on crime and drug smuggling, but Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (news, bio, voting record), D-Texas, said it would create "the largest gated community in the Western hemisphere."
The House voted 220-206 to approve a parliamentary measure needed to move ahead on the bill, but only after GOP leaders appealed in a private meeting for party unity. Some members were threatening to vote against the bill if it did not include a guest worker program, while others opposed adding such a program.
Late Thursday, Republicans were still gauging support among their ranks for the bill.
A few were unhappy that a provision denying citizenship to children born to illegal immigrants in the United States was not among the first 15 amendments getting a vote. The contentious measure could be offered Friday.
"Those people who are against this bill don't want any changes in the existing system except perhaps amnesty, or, excuse me, `earned legalization,' or perhaps citizenship for those who have broken the law," said Rep. James Sensenbrenner, a chief sponsor and chairman of the
House Judiciary Committee.
Earlier on a voice vote, House members approved an amendment requiring Border Patrol uniforms to be made in the United States. Rep. Rick Renzi (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., said they are now made in Mexico, possibly posing security problems.
Supporters of the overall bill defended their decision to cut off the flow of illegal entrants before turning to the tougher issues of a guest worker program or other means to fill the jobs that now attract millions of undocumented workers.
Almost all Democrats, and several border-state Republicans such as Rep. Jeff Flake (news, bio, voting record) and fellow Arizonan Jim Kolbe, pushed for a more comprehensive measure that would deal with the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants already in the United States.
The GOP bill "does nothing to solve the real problems of illegal immigration," Kolbe said. "In fact, it's worse than nothing."
The White House said in a statement that it strongly supported the House bill, while adding that it "remains committed to comprehensive immigration reform, including a temporary worker program that avoids amnesty."
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., says the guest worker issue will be on the table when the Senate takes up immigration overhaul in February. The main dispute is over whether the estimated 6 million illegal workers should have to leave the country before applying for a temporary worker program.
The border security aspects, King said, include requiring the
Homeland Security Department to employ the personnel and technology needed to secure the border; ending the "catch-and-release" policy for non-Mexicans; and requiring the
Pentagon and Homeland Security to come up with a common plan on the use of military technology to stop illegal crossings.
The bill also outlines increased penalties for smugglers and those re-entering illegally; authorizes police along the border to enforce immigration law; and makes illegal presence in the United States, now a civil offense, a misdemeanor crime.
The bill originally made illegal presence a felon. Sensenbrenner's spokesman, Jeff Lungren, said that was being changed because felonies require jury trials and consume too many resources.
Most significantly, the bill requires all employers in the country, more than 7 million, to check the legal status of workers.
___
Associated Press writer Jim Abrams contributed to this report.
___
bill, H.R. 4437, can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov/
Do you agree with the provisions of this bill??
Why???
Shy not??? paraclete answered on 12/18/05:sounds like the US has gained some sense at last. you must protect your borders and a fence is a non violent way of doing it. It's much a better solution than vigilente's | | Question/Answer | | sapphire630 asked on 12/12/05 - Do as I say (not as I do)
Some of the shocking hypocrisy Peter Schweizer reveals:
"I don't own a single share of stock," Michael Moore declares. No, his tax returns show he has owned hundreds of thousands -- profiting from some of the very companies (like Halliburton, Boeing and top pharmacuticals) he viciously denounces
How Moore's working-class, "regular guy" pose is contradicted by his lavish lifestyle and prima donna behavior -- such as traveling the country in a private jet accompanied by a fleet of private SUVs and bodyguards
Moore also relentlessly exposes those who fail to meet his standards of racial fairness and equality. So, of the 134 producers, editors, cinematographers, composers, and production coordinators Moore he hired to work on his many movies, how many do you think were black?
The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel: ultra-left class warrior, defender of the inheritance tax -- and trust-fund heiress who fought the IRS all the way to the Supreme Court to avoid paying $2 million in estate taxes
Princeton "ethics" professor Peter Singer crusades for euthanasia for the severely disabled and terminally ill. But when it comes to his own mother, he operates according to more humane principles (fortunately for her)
During the 2004 campaign, John Kerry complained that the "super-rich" don't pay their fair share in taxes. Care to guess what percentage of their income Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry -- who are worth over $700 million -- are paying in taxes?
Noam Chomsky opposes private property and calls the Pentagon "the most vile institution on the face of the earth" -- yet he has made millions in contract work for the Pentagon, owns two luxurious homes, and set up an irrevocable trust to protect his assets from Uncle Sam
Ted Kennedy favors racial set-asides on federal contracts -- but when it came to his own investment in an entire city block of Washington, DC, he got his political friends to help him waive an affirmative action set-aside
Another of Kennedy's great causes has been support of the estate or inheritance tax. But, he has repeatedly benefited from an intricate web of trusts and private foundations that have kept most of the family pie from ever ending up in the hands of the IRS
Kennedy has introduced dozens of pieces of legislation over the years to encourage alternative energy sources. But he helped block the Cape Wind Project -- an effort to provide clean energy for thousands of homes on Cape Cod -- because the project would be built in one of the family's favorite sailing and yachting areas
Al Franken habitually calls conservatives "liars" and "mean and nasty" -- yet as a writer for Saturday Night Live he penned jokes and skits so mean-spirited they appalled even his colleagues, and he uses brazen lies for his bestselling books all the time
Hillary Clinton supports the right of thirteen-year-old girls to have abortions without parental consent -- yet she forbade thirteen-year-old Chelsea to pierce her ears and enrolled her in a school that would not distribute condoms to minors
How Hillary, despite her pose as independent feminist and anti-corporate crusader, used her husband's position as Arkansas Attorney General to launch her corporate law career - then rode his political coattails into politics
Ralph Nader: how he speculates in the stocks of companies that might be influenced by his political activism. How he conceals enormous wealth and a lavish lifestyle behind a façade of pretended frugality
Nancy Pelosi has made supporting labor unions a cornerstone of her public career. Yet the vineyards and hotels that comprise her $35 million fortune have one thing in common: they don't use union labor
Barbra Streisand: how, on the three causes with which she seems most concerned -- poverty, environmentalism and feminism -- she engages in the very behaviors she says she deplores---m any very contradictory to her ecological views.
From Publishers Weekly
Working with a broadly inclusive pantheon of "the Left" that places Ralph Nader and Barbra Streisand on equal footing with Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton, Schweizer (The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty) suggests that liberalism's heroes conduct their lives in ways that prove their philosophy to be "ultimately self-defeating, self-destructive, and unworkable." While acknowledging that conservatives can be high-profile hypocrites as well, Schweizer employs a double standard, arguing that "when conservatives betray their publicly stated principles, they harm only themselves and their families," but when liberals misbehave, they harm their principles first and foremost. Sometimes his research uncovers significant contradictions, as when Schweizer points out that Noam Chomsky, who tends to demonize the military establishment, wrote his first book, Syntactic Structures, with grants from the U.S. Army, the Air Force and the Office of Naval Research. But many of his charges are egregiously hyperbolic, as when he suggests that Cornel West is a "segregationist" because he bought a home in a largely Caucasian suburb. Schweizer clearly knows the limitations of his argument, since he backpedals from many of his most damning statements in his closing remarks. For all its revelations, in the end, this volume reads less like a critique of liberal philosophy than a catalogue of ammunition for ad hominem bloggers. (Oct. 25)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
The Weekly Standard
"Peter Schweizer's Do As I Say (Not As I Do) is an entertaining exposure of the hypocrisy among some prominent liberals. In a series of 11 profiles on leftist icons from Noam Chomsky and Al Franken to Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy, Schweizer reveals that the most vocal liberals do not practice what they preach."
After digging deep into tax returns, real estate documents, business and investment patterns, court depositions, and hiring practices, Schweizer argues that even the most outspoken liberals jettison their progressive ideas and adopt conservative principles when it comes to what matters most in their lives – the protection of their property, privacy and families. All are adept at avoiding taxes, invest in the very industries they denounce, and abandon environmental causes when they impinge on their own property rights. While they cry racism and support affirmative action, many have abysmal records when it comes to hiring minorities. They condemn abstinence-based sex education programs, but enroll their own children in such studies. In short, according to Schweizer, liberalism forces its adherents to become hypocrites. His conclusion is strikingly simple and highly persuasive – liberal principles that don’t work for individuals have no place in shaping national programs and policies.
paraclete answered on 12/13/05:and, you thought it was different? | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 12/09/05 - The problem with direct attacks on Iranian nukes sites ...... are numerous .
Iran learned a valuable lesson from the Israeli Osirak strike. Their nuclear program is not concentrated in a single facility but spread out throughout the country .
As of 2003, they had declared nine facilities (and they probably have a few undeclared also) :
Tehran Nuclear Research Centre ;Kalaye Electric Company ;Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant
Isfahan Nuclear Technology Centre with several reactors and laboratories; fuel manufacturing
Natanz - Uranium enrichment
Karaj - storage of radioactive waste
Lashkar Ab'ad - Uranium laser enrichment plant
Arak - reactor, radioisotopes, heavy-water production
Anarak - waste storage
These sites are hardened ;many of them buried deep underground (the US recently abandoned development of nuke tipped bunker busters ..hmmmm) and are now protected by Russian made TOR-M1 SAMs .
Unless an attack on their program was decisive then it probably should not be attempted because they would reconstitute it in short order without the limited oversight that the IAEA provides (it aint much but it is unfortunately the only "reliable " intel we get on their program.)
Their missles conceivably could be targetted but they are not fixed site launchers. They use Shahab-3 and -5 mobile missles.
When you are dealing with rational leadership then a policy of mutually assured destruction actaully made sense . But even in the cold war with rational leaders on both sides there were moments when armegeddon was imminent . It is a very fragile solution . In the world we live in today with the likes of Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad MAD is not an option.
Negotiations have been a farce. Iran has played the EU-3 like a Stradivarius. They are more motivated by trade than national survival ,and the Iranians hold all the cards .They have called and suspended talks at will. The Russians are playing with the devil and are hoping that Iran won't turn on them ;but an Iranian nuke could make it into the hands of Shamil Basayev as well as Hezzbola . Like the EU ,Russia is willing to risk all for trade. With Russian support the Iranians could defeat any call for sanctions by the Security Council of the UN.
So now what?
One possible option is missle defense . Israel carried out a successful test of its missile-interceptor system [last week] when an Arrow II missile downed an incoming rocket designed to simulate an Iranian Shahab-3, the defense ministry said. US forces in the region have Aegis .But lets assume 100% effective missle shield ;who's to say that an Iranian nuke would be delivered by missle ? Missle defense is not sufficent.
There was a time when I thought that a backing of opposition groups inside Iran would bring about a regime change simular to the 'Orange Revolution' in Georgia. I am afraid that time is slipping and may be past for that .Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is working overtime to consolidate his power .
There were two justifications for building an Iranian bomb ;one justified and one meglomaniacal . The first one was the threat of Saddam and his WMD . That threat has been removed . The other one is the cultish nature of the Iranian Mullocracy as I described yesterday . Ahmadinejad is a card carrying member of a Shia cult that believes that Israels destruction would pave the way for the "hidden" 12th Imam( Muhammad al Muntazar ) .There is a clear purpose for the bomb and like Hitler before him ,Ahmadinejad has no problem in spelling it out ......if only he were taken seriously .
Short of a decapitation strike on the Iranian leaders I see other way to prevent disaster . paraclete answered on 12/10/05:rather than escalating the problem, have you thought that politicians come and go even in the islamic world and that sabre rattling an rhetoric only increase the problem. just do what already has been done, refuse to supply fuel. | | Question/Answer | | powderpuff asked on 11/25/05 - TV license? TV Licensing inspectors have caught almost 350,000 people watching TV without a licence so far this year.
People who fail to get a TV licence are pointing the finger of blame at pets in outlandish bids to avoid punishment
TV Licensing spokeswoman Jessica Ray said: "Claiming the TV is only ever watched by the family dog is not an excuse for not being properly covered by a TV licence.
"Being caught red-handed by TV Licensing isn't most people's idea of a funny situation......
...
but I think it is ;D
You can read the full article here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4469422.stm
.... and all along I thought a requirement for a Fishing License was over the top. paraclete answered on 11/26/05:the UK doesn't still have that antiquainted view of the world does it, as an enlightened nation Australia did away with that 40 years ago, just not worth the enforcement effort. It even makes cable installation worhtwhile | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 11/24/05 - Saddam Anti AlQuaeda? By Murray Waas, special to National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2005
""Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.
The administration has refused to provide the Sept. 21 President's Daily Brief, even on a classified basis, and won't say anything more about it other than to acknowledge that it exists.
The information was provided to Bush on September 21, 2001 during the "President's Daily Brief," a 30- to 45-minute early-morning national security briefing. Information for PDBs has routinely been derived from electronic intercepts, human agents, and reports from foreign intelligence services, as well as more mundane sources such as news reports and public statements by foreign leaders.
One of the more intriguing things that Bush was told during the briefing was that the few credible reports of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist group. Saddam viewed Al Qaeda as well as other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime. At one point, analysts believed, Saddam considered infiltrating the ranks of Al Qaeda with Iraqi nationals or even Iraqi intelligence operatives to learn more about its inner workings, according to records and sources.""
Comments? paraclete answered on 11/26/05:of course Saddam was anti Al Qaeda in Iraq, he was anti anything that threatened his regime and a fundamentalist view of Islam would certainly be a threat, but that doesn't mean that he didn't support it in a broader sense against his enemy the USA | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 11/23/05 - Bush Spins Facts Harris Poll as viewed on the on line Wall Street Journal site::
""A majority of U.S. adults believe the Bush administration generally misleads the public on current issues, while fewer than a third of Americans believe the information provided by the administration is generally accurate, the latest Harris Interactive poll finds.
While the telephone survey of 1,011 U.S. adults indicates about 64% of Americans believe the Bush administration "generally misleads the American public on current issues to achieve its own ends,"...""
Is there any way for Bush to overcome the public perception that he is a spinner and liar??? paraclete answered on 11/23/05:he could try telling the truth | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 11/22/05 - Quiz - Who said it? Quiz
Who said it?
1) “I was convinced before the war that the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein required a vigorous and sustained international response to disarm him. Iraq possessed and had used chemical weapons; it had an active biological weapons program and quite possibly a nuclear research program — all of which were in violation of United Nations resolutions. Having encountered Mr. Hussein and his thugs in the run-up to the Persian Gulf war of 1991, I was only too aware of the dangers he posed.”
A. George W. Bush
B. Dick Cheney
C. Karl Rove
D. Joseph C. Wilson
2) “Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors. Their purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States, and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world. Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons.”
A. George W. Bush
B. Dick Cheney
C. Karl Rove
D. Bill Clinton
3) “Any delay would have given (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein time to reconstitute his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and undermine international support for our efforts.”
A. George W. Bush
B. Dick Cheney
C. Karl Rove
D. Senate Minority Leader Robert Torricelli and House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt
4) “We urge you, after consulting with Congress and consistent with the US Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions, including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.”
A. George W. Bush
B. Dick Cheney
C. Karl Rove
D. Senators Levin, Lieberman, Lautenberg, Dodd, Kerrey, Feinstein, Mikulski, Daschle, Breaux, Johnson, Inouye, Landrieu, Ford and Kerry
5) "This [Saddam Hussein] is a guy who is an extreme danger to the world, and this is a guy who is in every way possible seeking weapons of mass destruction."
A. George W. Bush
B. Dick Cheney
C. Karl Rove
D. Joe Biden
6) “If Saddam rejects peace, and we have to use force, our purpose is clear: We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program.”
A. George W. Bush
B. Dick Cheney
C. Karl Rove
D. Bill Clinton
7) "[I]f you allow someone like Saddam Hussein to get nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, how many people is he going to kill with such weapons? He has already demonstrated a willingness to use such weapons..."
A. George W. Bush
B. Dick Cheney
C. Karl Rove
D. Bill Clinton
8) “Without question we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator leading an impressive regime. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. And now he's miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. His consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction.”
A. George W. Bush
B. Dick Cheney
C. Karl Rove
D. Al Gore
9) “We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and the security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction.”
A. George W. Bush
B. Dick Cheney
C. Karl Rove
D. Madeline Albright
10) “He'll use those weapons of mass destruction again as he has 10 times since 1983.”
A. George W. Bush
B. Dick Cheney
C. Karl Rove
D. Madeline Albright
11) “[I]ntelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock. His missile delivery capability, his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists including Al-Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons.”
A. George W. Bush
B. Dick Cheney
C. Karl Rove
D. Hillary Clinton
12) “(I have seen) a large body of intelligence information over a long time that he is working on and has weapons of mass destruction. Before 1991, he was close to a nuclear device. Now, you'll get a debate about whether it's one year away or five years away.”
A. George W. Bush
B. Dick Cheney
C. Karl Rove
D. Dick Gephardt
13) "[S]eeing day after day, week after week, briefings on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and his plans on using those weapons, he cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons. It's just that simple. The whole world changes if Saddam ever has nuclear weapons."
A. George W. Bush
B. Dick Cheney
C. Karl Rove
D. John Edwards
14) “The administration has said, 'Look, we have exhausted virtually our diplomatic effort to get the Iraqis to comply with their own agreements and with international law. Given that, what other option is there but to force them to do so?' That's what they're saying. This is the key question. And the answer is we don't have another option. We have got to force them to comply, and we are doing so militarily.”
A. George W. Bush
B. Dick Cheney
C. Karl Rove
D. Tom Daschle
15) “Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology, which is a threat to countries in the region, and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.”
A. George W. Bush
B. Dick Cheney
C. Karl Rove
D. Nancy Pelosi
16) “We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction.”
A. George W. Bush
B. Dick Cheney
C. Karl Rove
D. Nancy Pelosi
17) "[H]e does have the capacity, as all terrorist-related operations do, of smuggling stuff into the United States and doing something terrible. That is true. But there's been no connection, hard connection made yet between he and al-Qaida or his willingness or effort to do that thus far. Doesn't mean he won't. This is a bad guy."
A. George W. Bush
B. Dick Cheney
C. Karl Rove
D. Joe Biden
18) “Iraq is a long way from (here), but what happens there matters a great deal here, for the risk that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest national security threat we face -- and it is a threat against which we must and will stand firm.”
A. George W. Bush
B. Dick Cheney
C. Karl Rove
D. Madeline Albright
19) "One of the most compelling threats we in this country face today is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Threat assessments regularly warn us of the possibility that North Korea, Iran, Iraq, or some other nation may acquire or develop nuclear weapons."
A. George W. Bush
B. Dick Cheney
C. Karl Rove
D. Dick Durbin
20) “Saddam Hussein has already used these weapons and has made it clear that he has the intent to continue to try, by virtue of his duplicity and secrecy, to continue to do so. That is a threat to the stability of the Middle East. It is a threat with respect to the potential of terrorist activities on a global basis.”
A. George W. Bush
B. Dick Cheney
C. Karl Rove
D. John Kerry
Answer key: Questions 1-20: D
paraclete answered on 11/22/05:well the answer is not the obvious that's for sure | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 11/21/05 - Arabs
Hello experts:
I know some of you will take offense at my premise, but that’s never stopped me before.
I’m an uneducated exconvict. Bush is an educated president. Nonetheless, I put myself on the same intellectual plain with Bush in terms of world affairs. Pretty arrogant of me, huh?
Here’s why. Well, having no education, I never knew how the world WAS. But I read, so I know how the world IS. Bush, being educated, knows how the world WAS. But he doesn’t read, so he doesn’t know how the world IS.
Given all that, I’d say that makes us even. You may say something different, and I’m sure you will.
Here’s what I know: The Arabs of today can’t get along with anybody. That’s the way it is, and I believe that’s the way it’s been. Do you think they can?
Here’s the predicament: Our very future, maybe even our survival, is based on whether the Iraqi’s can keep their country together after we leave, WHENEVER that happens to be. And that date will come. Bush bet OUR future, the ENTIRE ballgame, on the ability of Arabs to get along.
I would never make a bet like that. I don’t think that was very good. You would have?
excon
paraclete answered on 11/21/05:hey excon, arabs have proven they can't get along with other arabs, or anyoneelse for that matter. There is a simple solution, americans go home and leave them to it, they will either stop the killing because the enemy disappeared, or they will have a civil war to settle all those old scores between the various families, tribes and so on. When they get finished they can take up the old scores between the arabs and the Iranians, the arabs and the Israelis, and so on. Either way, it's better to be a bystander, than in between them | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 11/21/05 - Fences??? On the border??? You've got to be kidding!!
Hello experts:
Boy, I just don’t see how we can keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Now, I’m just an exconvict, but it seems to me that changing the immigration law would be easier, cheaper and infinitely more effective than building a fence.
Consider for a minute, that if our immigration policy worked, there would be more legal immigrants applying for jobs than illegal ones. Now, we don't have ANY legals applying for "those" kinds of jobs. So, instead of building a fence to keep them out, we should open our doors, and let in those who we want. I’m not too bright, but we do want dishwashers, don’t we?
Were we to do that, the dishwasher at your favorite restaurant wouldn’t have to worry about being busted by the INS. He wouldn’t have to worry about not paying taxes. He wouldn’t have to worry about armed vigilantes at the border. He wouldn’t have to worry about the people smugglers that he’d have to pay $1,000’s for the privilege of smothering in a trailer with 100’s of other people. He wouldn’t have to worry about dying in the dessert. He wouldn’t have to worry about unethical employers who run sweatshops because illegals can’t snitch.
The other advantage of a policy like that would be that the guys who are THEN illegally crossing the border are most likely terrorists - not a leafblowers.
excon
paraclete answered on 11/21/05:so you want to destroy whole industries just to keep the costs low, obviously a yankee capitalist solution. but if everyone can just walk in, I'm not sure what the difference is with the present situation, how do you identify the terrorists. Ah, I know, racial profiling, anyone dark, swarthy and with a beard not allowed in, for women anyone with a head scarf not allowed in | | Question/Answer | | jnlomonte asked on 11/14/05 - Poster Poster seen at a political rally with a picture of Dubya.
"Will somebody please give this guy a blowjob so we can impeach him." paraclete answered on 11/14/05:sounds like a low blow | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 11/10/05 - Ethics???
Hello Bush dudes:
If ethics AREN'T a problem at the white house, why would classes be undertaken now? Shouldn't senior government officials already KNOW about ethics in government?
I'll be interested in your spin on this one.
excon
paraclete answered on 11/11/05:ethics in government, excon, is that an oxymoron, it's not so long ago that the concept of natural justice needed to be explained to bureaucrats, you know they still haven't got it, they think it means you get paid more for doing less.. | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 11/10/05 - Prisoner Abuse
Hello experts:
Without going back to read your previous responses, I would bet that some of you (and you know who you are), said that the abuses at Abu Grahib were the result of just a few rouge lower level soldiers.
In light of the recent exposure of a chain of CIA prisons in Asia, and Cheney's attempt to exempt parts of the goverment from torturing, while Bush says that WE don't torture......
It is rather confusing, I know. I guess it is simpler just to deny the whole thing is happening and go out for a burger.
excon
paraclete answered on 11/11/05:I don't recall even thinking that, I had little doubt that this treatment of prisioners had been sanctioned at the highest level, even if the words, we don't torture were said witn a question in the voice. we all know enough about the military to know low level soldiers don't do anything without being told to do it by a superior. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 11/10/05 - lock and load ! so what happens in a country like ...oh lets say...France ;when they do not have 2nd amendment rights . read on :
Faced with widespread lawlessness, some people in France have started defending their property. In Seine-Saint-Denis, a suburb of Paris rocked by several nights of unrest, a community group has started patrolling local properties armed with pepper spray and heavy flashlights.
ROTFL ;Here I was expecting shotguns, rifles or pistols to complete the sentence but then thought No, this is Europe and there must be laws against carrying firearms in public so I thought baseball bats would be the ticket.
paraclete answered on 11/11/05:but you see, Tom, you have looked at it from a purely american, beat the tar out of someone and ask questions later, perspective, whereas the French are a little more polite, they shine the flashlight in your eyes, ask who you are, then kick you to death. | | Question/Answer | sapphire630 asked on 11/08/05 - I think ETW's point is
Bush got left with the mess Clinton didn't want to deal with! Clinton was too busy worrying about keeping his personal life hidden.
People forget--- AS AMERICANS DEBATE what President Clinton’s legacy should be, too little attention is given to his remarks on Kosovo. The United States launched a war against a European nation largely at Clinton’s behest. Clinton’s war against Serbia epitomized his moralism, his arrogance, his refusal to respect law, and his fixation on proving his virtue by using deadly force, regardless of how many innocent people died in the process.
Clinton claimed on March 24, 1999, that one purpose of bombing Serbia (including Kosovo) was “to deter an even bloodier offensive against innocent civilians in Kosovo and, if necessary, to seriously damage the Serbian military’s capacity to harm the people of Kosovo.” The CIA had warned the Clinton administration that if bombing was initiated, the Serbian army would greatly accelerate its efforts to expel ethnic Albanians. The White House disregarded this warning and feigned surprise when mass expulsions began.
They say the rioting in France is being done by terrorists. Why? Whenever France didn't want to stand by us when Bush wanted them too, because they didn't want to upset the terrorists. So now it is biting them in the butt!
I am no Bush supporter; but the democraps that think you can *reason* with terrorists are loonatics!
paraclete answered on 11/08/05:You're right sapph you cannot reason with terrorists, the only thing they understand is death and destruction and the only way to stop them is using the weapons they understand. This is a terrible commentary on the state of the world today, that we are left with only the untimate sanction to stop violence | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 11/08/05 - Shoots Foot cut and paste from Huffington Post Blog::
"Too funny. Hastert and Frist make a big show of calling for an investigation into a leak allegedly affecting national security -- the locations of secret "black site" torture prisons. And then -- BOOM!!! Lott just said, Tuesday afternoon, that he thinks it was a GOP Senator who leaked the info to the Washington Post last week. He says the details had been discussed at a GOP Senators-only meeting last week, and that many of those details made it into the WaPo story.
Money quote from Lott; "We can not remain silent. We have met the enemy, and it is us."
All just reported on CNN. We are, folks, witnessing the full-on implosion of the national Republican Party. And not a second too soon."
Hmmmmm....I wonder? paraclete answered on 11/08/05:is everything in the US as unintelligiable as this? no wonder you elected Bush President | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 11/07/05 - OK, So We Got Even for 9-11 NOW WHAT?????
WE IN AMERICA ARE WORSE OFF THAN WE COULD EVER HAVE IMAGINED.
TONY BLAIR SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER, SHOULDN'T HE??? paraclete answered on 11/08/05:now what are we saying here, chou, George Bush is too stupid to know better but Tony Blair is to blame because he's smarter than that. Well appearently not. I think these two are the greatest pair of dumbo's this century, closely followed by John Howard, who did know better but went along for the ride. | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 11/07/05 - All liars? "Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.
"Their purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States, and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world.
"Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons."
--- President Bill Clinton, 12/16/98.
"Any delay would have given (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein time to reconstitute his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and undermine international support for our efforts."
--- Joint Statement issued by Senate Minority Leader Robert Torricelli and House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, 12/16/98.
"The inventory of arms the Iraqi government submitted on Saturday is a 12,000-page, 100-pound lie."
--- Senator Joseph Liberman
ŗ.7 INTELLIGENCE ON UBL’S CAPABILITIES AND ITS VALIDATION
蕐. A considerable quantity of evidence of Usama bin Laden’s capabilities in the nuclear, biological and chemical .elds was uncovered after the US-led military action in Afghanistan in October 2001. This section compares these discoveries with JIC
judgements beforehand.
"NUCLEAR
蕑. In 1999, the JIC reported Usama bin Laden’s claims to be setting up a laboratory in Afghanistan. Following the collapse of the Taliban regime, in January 2002 the United Nations Security Council listed a former Pakistani nuclear scientist Bashir Mahmoud as associated with the Taliban or Al Qaida.
"CHEMICAL
蕒. Intelligence reporting from 1999 onwards testified to the activities of Abu Khabbab, an explosives and chemicals expert who ran training courses which included information on how to make and use poisons. This was confirmed by discoveries in Afghanistan such as a video showing chemical experiments being carried out on animals, and by the finding of numerous training manuals.
"BIOLOGICAL
蕓. In 1999, the JIC reported that:
In February 1999 one of his followers claimed that UBL intended to attack US and UK targets in India, Indonesia and the US, by using means which even the US could not counter, implying the use of chemical or biological material. [JIC, 9 June 1999]
蕔. Some work with biological agents was also attributed to Abu Khabbab, though the evidence was not detailed. However, the JIC’s judgement that Al Qaida was developing biological weapons was con.rmed by the discovery in Afghanistan of the Kandahar laboratory, and evidence that scientists had been recruited."
--- Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction, a/k/a The “Butler Report”, 7/14/04.
"With regard to biological warfare activities,...ISG teams are uncovering significant information -- including research and development of BW-applicable organisms, the involvement of Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) in possible BW activities, and deliberate concealment activities.
"[T]wo key former BW scientists, confirmed that Iraq under the guise of legitimate activity developed refinements of processes and products relevant to BW agents. The scientists discussed the development of improved, simplified fermentation and spray drying capabilities for the simulant Bt that would have been directly applicable to anthrax, and one scientist confirmed that the production line for Bt could be switched to produce anthrax in one week if the seed stock were available....
"One noteworthy example is a collection of reference strains that ought to have been declared to the UN. Among them was a vial of live C. botulinum Okra B. from which a biological agent can be produced. This discovery [was] hidden in the home of a BW scientist....The scientist who concealed the vials containing this agent has identified a large cache of agents that he was asked, but refused, to conceal. ISG is actively searching for this second cache."
--- Interim Report of David Kay 10/2/03.
"Yesterday's coalition release also said that two other 122-milimeter rounds, found by the Poles on June 16 with help from an Iraqi informer, tested positive for small quantities of sarin but were "so deteriorated" that they would have had "limited to no impact if used by insurgents against coalition forces."...
"Charles Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, told Fox News on June 24 that "some" old sarin and mustard rounds have been discovered in scattered places, demonstrating "that the Iraqi declarations were wrong at least in . . . amount.""
--- Walter Pincus, Washington Post, 7/3/04.
"In virtually every case - chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic missiles - the United States has found the weapons and the programs that the Iraqi dictator successfully concealed for 12 years from U.N. weapons inspectors....
"But what are "stockpiles" of CW agents supposed to look like? Was anyone seriously expecting Saddam to have left behind freshly painted warehouses packed with chemical munitions, all neatly laid out in serried rows, with labels written in English? Or did they think that a captured Saddam would guide U.S. troops to smoking vats full of nerve gas in an abandoned factory? In fact, as recent evidence made public by a former operations officer for the Coalition Provisional Authority's (CPA's) intelligence unit in Iraq shows, some of those stockpiles have been found - not all at once, and not all in nice working order - but found all the same....
"But another reason for the media silence may stem from the seemingly undramatic nature of the "finds" [Douglas] Hanson and others have described. The materials that constitute Saddam's chemical-weapons "stockpiles" look an awful lot like pesticides, which they indeed resemble. "Pesticides are the key elements in the chemical-agent arena," Hanson says. "In fact, the general pesticide chemical formula (organophosphate) is the 'grandfather' of modern-day nerve agents.""
---Kenneth Timmerman, Insight Magazine, April 26th, 2004
"At Karbala, U.S. troops stumbled upon 55-gallon drums of pesticides at what appeared to be a very large "agricultural supply" area, Hanson says. Some of the drums were stored in a "camouflaged bunker complex" that was shown to reporters - with unpleasant results. "More than a dozen soldiers, a Knight-Ridder reporter, a CNN cameraman, and two Iraqi POWs came down with symptoms consistent with exposure to a nerve agent," Hanson says. "But later ISG tests resulted in a proclamation of negative, end of story, nothing to see here, etc., and the earlier findings and injuries dissolved into nonexistence. Left unexplained is the small matter of the obvious pains taken to disguise the cache of ostensibly legitimate pesticides. One wonders about the advantage an agricultural-commodities business gains by securing drums of pesticide in camouflaged bunkers 6 feet underground. The 'agricultural site' was also colocated with a military ammunition dump - evidently nothing more than a coincidence in the eyes of the ISG."
"That wasn't the only significant find by coalition troops of probable CW stockpiles, Hanson believes. Near the northern Iraqi town of Bai'ji, where Saddam had built a chemical-weapons plant known to the United States from nearly 12 years of inspections, elements of the 4th Infantry Division found 55-gallon drums containing a substance identified through mass spectrometry analysis as cyclosarin - a nerve agent. Nearby were surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, gas masks and a mobile laboratory that could have been used to mix chemicals at the site. "Of course, later tests by the experts revealed that these were only the ubiquitous pesticides that everybody was turning up," Hanson says. "It seems Iraqi soldiers were obsessed with keeping ammo dumps insect-free, according to the reading of the evidence now enshrined by the conventional wisdom that 'no WMD stockpiles have been discovered.'""
---Kenneth Timmerman, Insight Magazine, April 26th, 2004
"We urge you, after consulting with Congress and consistent with the US Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions, including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
--- October 9th, 1999 Letter to President Clinton Signed by Senators Levin, Lieberman, Lautenberg, Dodd, Kerrey, Feinstein, Mikulski, Daschle, Breaux, Johnson, Inouye, Landrieu, Ford and Kerry
"This is a guy who is an extreme danger to the world, and this is a guy who is in every way possible seeking weapons of mass destruction."
---Joe Biden, August 4, 2002
If Saddam rejects peace, and we have to use force, our purpose is clear: We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
---Bill Clinton, February 17, 1998
"[I]f you allow someone like Saddam Hussein to get nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, how many people is he going to kill with such weapons? He has already demonstrated a willingness to use such weapons..."
--- Al Gore, December 16, 1998
"Without question we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator leading an impressive regime. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. And now he's miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. His consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction."
---John Kerry > January 23, 2003
"We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and the security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction."
--- Madeleine Albright > February 1, 1998
"He'll use those weapons of mass destruction again as he has 10 times since 1983."
--- Sandy Berger > February 18, 1998
"We begin with a common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations, is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."
---Senator Carl Levin > September 19, 2002
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock. His missile delivery capability, his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists including Al-Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
---Senator Hillary Clinton > October 10, 2002
"Hussein has chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
--- Madeleine Albright > November 10, 1999
"In the four years since the inspections, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability and his nuclear program."
--- Hillary Clinton > October 10, 2002
“The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of ྞ. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons."
---Robert Byrd > October 3, 2002
Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter, and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
---Al Gore > September 23, 2002
"I think he has anthrax. I have not seen any evidence that he has smallpox, but you hear them say, Tim (Russert), is the last smallpox outbreak in the world was in Iraq; ergo, he may have a strain."
---Joe Biden > August 4, 2002
"(I have seen) a large body of intelligence information over a long time that he is working on and has weapons of mass destruction. Before 1991, he was close to a nuclear device. Now, you'll get a debate about whether it's one year away or five years away."
---Dick Gephardt > September 23, 2002
"With regard to Iraq, I agree Iraq presents a genuine threat, especially in the form of weapons of mass destruction: chemical, biological and potentially nuclear weapons. I agree that Saddam Hussein is exceptionally dangerous and brutal, if not uniquely so, as the president argues."
---Russell Feingold > October 9, 2002
"Serving on the intelligence committee and seeing day after day, week after week, briefings on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and his plans on using those weapons, he cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons. It's just that simple. The whole world changes if Saddam ever has nuclear weapons."
--- John Edwards > January 7, 2003
"If you don't believe...Saddam Hussein is a threat with nuclear weapons, then you shouldn't vote for me."
--- John Kerry > January 31, 2003
"I believe he has chemical and biological weapons. I think he's trying to develop nuclear weapons, and the fact that he might use those is a considerable threat to us."
---Bill Nelson > September 14, 2002
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
---Al Gore > September 23, 2002
"The (Clinton) administration has said, 'Look, we have exhausted virtually our diplomatic effort to get the Iraqis to comply with their own agreements and with international law. Given that, what other option is there but to force them to do so?' That's what they're saying. This is the key question. And the answer is we don't have another option. We have got to force them to comply, and we are doing so militarily."
--- Tom Daschle > February 11, 1998
"The threat of nuclear proliferation is one of the big challenges that we have now, especially by states that have nuclear weapons, outlaw states like Iraq."
---Bill Richardson > May 29, 1998
"It is clear, however, that if left unchecked Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capability to wage biological and chemical warfare and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
---Hillary Clinton > October 10, 2002
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology, which is a threat to countries in the region, and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
--- Nancy Pelosi > December 16, 1998
"I will be voting to give the president of the US the authority to use force if necessary to disarm Saddam because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."
--- John Kerry > October 9, 2002
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
---Ted Kennedy > September 27, 2002
"There was unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. We also should remember that we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."
---Jay Rockefeller > October 10, 2002
"[H]e does have the capacity, as all terrorist-related operations do, of smuggling stuff into the United States and doing something terrible. That is true. But there's been no connection, hard connection made yet between he and al-Qaida or his willingness or effort to do that thus far. Doesn't mean he won't. This is a bad guy."
---Joe Biden > August 4, 2002
Iraq is a long way from (here), but what happens there matters a great deal here, for the risk that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest national security threat we face -- and it is a threat against which we must and will stand firm."
--- Madeline Albright > February 18, 2002
"I certainly think (Hussein's) developing nuclear capability which, fortunately, the Israelis set back 20 years ago with their preemptive attack which, in hindsight, looks pretty darn good."
--- Jane Harman > August 27, 2002
"One of the most compelling threats we in this country face today is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Threat assessments regularly warn us of the possibility that North Korea, Iran, Iraq, or some other nation may acquire or develop nuclear weapons."
--- Dick Durbin > September 30, 1999
"[M]y own personal view is, I think Saddam has chemical and biological weapons, and I expect that he is trying to develop a nuclear weapon. So at some point, we might have to act precipitously."
---Bill Nelson > August 25, 2002
"Yes, he has chemical weapons. Yes, he has biological weapons. He is trying to get nuclear weapons."
---Nancy Pelosi > October 10, 2002
"I'm inclined to support going in there and dealing with Saddam, but I think that case
needs to be made on a separate basis: his possession of biological and chemical weapons, his desire to get nuclear weapons, his proven track record of attacking his neighbors and others."
--- Evan Bayh > August 4, 2002
"We have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st Century.... They will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen. There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein."
--- Bill Clinton > February 17, 1998
"I voted for the Iraqi resolution. I consider the prospect of a nuclear-armed Saddam Hussein who can threaten not only his neighbors but the stability of the region and the world, a very serious threat to the United States."
---Hillary Clinton > January 22, 2003
"We know he continues to attempt to gain access to additional capability, including nuclear capability."
---Joe Biden > August 4, 2002
"The question is whether we're going to allow this man who's been developing weapons of mass destruction continue to develop weapons of mass destruction, get nuclear capability and get to the place where -- if we're going to stop him if he invades a country around him -- it'll cost millions of lives as opposed to thousands of lives."
---John Edwards > February 6, 2003
"First of all, we don't know exactly what he has. It's been five years since inspectors have been in there, number one. Number two, it is clear that he has residual of chemical weapons and biological weapons, number one."
---Joe Biden > August 4, 2002
"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has and has had for a number of years a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction."
--- Senator Bob Graham > December 8, 2002
"Saddam Hussein has already used these weapons and has made it clear that he has the intent to continue to try, by virtue of his duplicity and secrecy, to continue to do so. That is a threat to the stability of the Middle East. It is a threat with respect to the potential of terrorist activities on a global basis. It is a threat even to regions near but not exactly in the Middle East."
--- John Kerry > February 23, 1998
So... were these guys lying too?
Elliot paraclete answered on 11/07/05:the question is now whether they were lying but whether they were lied to. Maybe they had some half truths, maybe some of what they had was truth, but how much was scenario, the "what if's" that became the "when and how". If Osama bin Laden had WMD at his disposal don't you think he would have used them. If Saddam had WMD at his disposal don't you think he would have used them, but you don't need them to cause big problems as OBL demonstrated so ably on 9/11 | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 11/04/05 - IMPEACHMENT New Poll: Majority of Americans Support Impeachment
Submitted by davidswanson on Fri, 2005-11-04 04:24. Activism
For Immediate Release: November 4, 2005
New Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support Impeachment;
ImpeachPAC is Launched to Support Pro-Impeachment Candidates
"By a margin of 53% to 42%, Americans want Congress to impeach President Bush if he lied about the war in Iraq, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
The poll was conducted by Zogby International, the highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. The poll interviewed 1,200 U.S. adults from October 29 through November 2.
The poll found that 53% agreed with the statement:
"If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."
42% disagreed, and 5% said they didn't know or declined to answer. The poll has a +/- 2.9% margin of error.
"These results are stunning," said AfterDowningStreet.org co-founder Bob Fertik. "A clear majority of Americans now supports President Bush's impeachment." paraclete answered on 11/07/05:I'm sorry! but I don't get this, the guy has been a stuff-up for five years, and now after he has won an election on his own merits, whatever they might be, you want to impeach him.
I certainly wouldn't want to be an American. It must be very confusing over there. How many Presidents have you tried to impeach so far? You really need a better selection system. | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 11/04/05 - Torture
Hello:
My last favorite president, indeed my only favorite, was JFK. All the rest suck. He was my Commander in Chief. When he said go to war, I did.
What I remember most about my youth and my coming of age under his presidency, is the stark picture that was painted of the Soviet gulags. The reasons I went to war for my country, were particularly, those prisons and the torture heaped upon those prisoners, I didn’t know much more about them, but that was enough. They were SO different than us.
Now, we are them.
My feelings, however, about a country that would do that have not changed, even though that country is my own. Do you think I should change my views - or my country?
excon
paraclete answered on 11/07/05:yes JFK faced a real crisis, not one of his own making, and he was decisive and effective, but his success was too much for someone. | | Question/Answer | | CeeBee2 asked on 11/05/05 - Ending the Fraudulence about the Reverse Midas Touch Ending the Fraudulence
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times
Monday 31 October 2005
Let me be frank: it has been a long political nightmare. For some of us, daily life has remained safe and comfortable, so the nightmare has merely been intellectual: we realized early on that this administration was cynical, dishonest and incompetent, but spent a long time unable to get others to see the obvious. For others - above all, of course, those Americans risking their lives in a war whose real rationale has never been explained - the nightmare has been all too concrete.
So is the nightmare finally coming to an end? Yes, I think so. I have no idea whether Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, will bring more indictments in the Plame affair. In any case, I don't share fantasies that Dick Cheney will be forced to resign; even Karl Rove may keep his post. One way or another, the Bush administration will stagger on for three more years. But its essential fraudulence stands exposed, and it's hard to see how that exposure can be undone.
What do I mean by essential fraudulence? Basically, I mean the way an administration with an almost unbroken record of policy failure has nonetheless achieved political dominance through a carefully cultivated set of myths.
The record of policy failure is truly remarkable. It sometimes seems as if President Bush and Mr. Cheney are Midases in reverse: everything they touch - from Iraq reconstruction to hurricane relief, from prescription drug coverage to the pursuit of Osama - turns to crud. Even the few apparent successes turn out to contain failures at their core: for example, real G.D.P. may be up, but real wages are down.
The point is that this administration's political triumphs have never been based on its real-world achievements, which are few and far between. The administration has, instead, built its power on myths: the myth of presidential leadership, the ugly myth that the administration is patriotic while its critics are not. Take away those myths, and the administration has nothing left.
Well, Katrina ended the leadership myth, which was already fading as the war dragged on. There was a time when a photo of Mr. Bush looking out the window of Air Force One on 9/11 became an iconic image of leadership. Now, a similar image of Mr. Bush looking out at a flooded New Orleans has become an iconic image of his lack of connection. Pundits may try to resurrect Mr. Bush's reputation, but his cult of personality is dead - and the inscription on the tombstone reads, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
Meanwhile, the Plame inquiry, however it winds up, has ended the myth of the administration's monopoly on patriotism, which was also fading in the face of the war.
Apologists can shout all they like that no laws were broken, that hardball politics is nothing new, or whatever. The fact remains that officials close to both Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush leaked the identity of an undercover operative for political reasons. Whether or not that act was illegal, it was clearly unpatriotic.
And the Plame affair has also solidified the public's growing doubts about the administration's morals. By a three-to-one margin, according to a Washington Post poll, the public now believes that the level of ethics and honesty in the government has declined rather than risen under Mr. Bush.
So the Bush administration has lost the myths that sustained its mojo, and with them much of its power to do harm. But the nightmare won't be fully over until two things happen.
First, politicians will have to admit that they were misled. Second, the news media will have to face up to their role in allowing incompetents to pose as leaders and political apparatchiks to pose as patriots.
It's a sad commentary on the timidity of most Democrats that even now, with Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, telling us how policy was "hijacked" by the Cheney-Rumsfeld "cabal," it's hard to get leading figures to admit that they were misled into supporting the Iraq war. Kudos to John Kerry for finally saying just that last week.
And as for the media: these days, there is much harsh, justified criticism of the failure of major news organizations, this one included, to exert due diligence on rationales for the war. But the failures that made the long nightmare possible began much earlier, during the weeks after 9/11, when the media eagerly helped our political leaders build up a completely false picture of who they were.
So the long nightmare won't really be over until journalists ask themselves: what did we know, when did we know it, and why didn't we tell the public?
***********************************
Will journalists start asking each other those questions? paraclete answered on 11/07/05:Yes Bush has to good for something, it seems his skill is turning prosperity into depression, now he wants to turn South American prosperity, such as it is, into depression | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 11/04/05 - IMPEACHMENT New Poll: Majority of Americans Support Impeachment
Submitted by davidswanson on Fri, 2005-11-04 04:24. Activism
For Immediate Release: November 4, 2005
New Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support Impeachment;
ImpeachPAC is Launched to Support Pro-Impeachment Candidates
"By a margin of 53% to 42%, Americans want Congress to impeach President Bush if he lied about the war in Iraq, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
The poll was conducted by Zogby International, the highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. The poll interviewed 1,200 U.S. adults from October 29 through November 2.
The poll found that 53% agreed with the statement:
"If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."
42% disagreed, and 5% said they didn't know or declined to answer. The poll has a +/- 2.9% margin of error.
"These results are stunning," said AfterDowningStreet.org co-founder Bob Fertik. "A clear majority of Americans now supports President Bush's impeachment." paraclete answered on 11/04/05:don't just talk about it, do it, but do it for the right reasons. George bush has faced an election after his lies were exposed so you can't impeach him for that | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 11/04/05 - How Ironic I remember when Senator Durbin (D ILL) made a speech that compared how America treated Islamic prisoners to a Soviet-style gulag.
Wellll, now we learn that the situation wasn't just a metaphorical gulag, BUT REAL CHAINS OF DETENTIONS CAMPS IN EASTERN EUROPE....LITERAL GULAGS!!! paraclete answered on 11/04/05:the dirty tricks department exposed, and you thought they were squeaky clean because they told you so | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 11/01/05 - What's Wrong with Bush? Today, I watched Bush give a speech about America's preparation for the possibility of Avian Flu. He mispronounced words and stumbled in each sentence at the beginning of the speech. Just now, I ran into this essay by Nora Ephron; I think it brings up some interesting thoughts.
"What's wrong with the president? Is he fighting depression? Is he being medicated in some way that isn't quite working? What's up? I even bought a copy of one of the supermarket tabloids that alleged he'd started drinking again, but the article (like all articles in supermarket tabloids) was extremely disappointing; even the over-exciting picture of the President on the front page, holding a glass of wine, turned out to be an old irrelevant photograph of him making a toast at some banquet; there was no real evidence in the article that he was back on the sauce.
But I've been wondering about what's going on with W ever since he emerged from his bizarre groundhog-like vacation and responded to Hurricane Katrina as if he were under water. He had no affect at all. He was almost robotic. His meager vocabulary seemed to have shrunk even further. He conveyed no feeling for the victims -- and this was early on, way before anyone realized how many poor people were involved. It was strange. What's so hard about cranking yourself up for hurricane victims, especially when you think they're mostly white people who have lost their second homes on the Gulf Coast?
At the time I wondered if Bush was on Paxil or Lexapro, drugs that several of my friends are taking and that seem to have turned them into strangely muted versions of themselves. I asked my friend Rita, who's a shrink, but Rita is very careful about committing on subjects of this sort. She did point out, though, that sometimes, when the President talks, his mouth has a strange sideways twitch, which is apparently common in people who are on antidepressants. Actually it might have been my husband who said this, I can't remember.
But I started thinking about all this again on Sunday. On the Chris Matthews Show, there was some old footage of the president from last year's presidential campaign. He was outdoors, talking to a group of people in hard hats; he was energetic, focused, confident, on top of the world. Now you could easily counter: of course he was, it was a lovely day, he was surrounded by supporters, things were going well. But the President we're seeing these days is a completely different man.
He has, of course, a lot of reasons to be depressed -- no point in enumerating them, you know what they are. But most of all, I think he's depressed because the job has turned out to be so much more onerous than he expected -- he said as much to a friend of mine in September. "You have no idea," he said, "how hard these five years have been." This is a fairly breathtaking remark given the number of people who, thanks to this president, are now dead as a result of his five years in the Oval Office, but never mind.
The point is that it seems possible to me that when George Bush gave up alcohol in 1986, he dealt with the depression that often accompanies sobriety by becoming an obsessive exerciser. And that's what he's essentially done ever since. He's never held anything that could be confused with a job. Owning a football team is not a job. Even being governor of Texas takes only a couple of months a year, it turns out. So he was free to exercise.
But at some point this year, something happened and the exercise regimen stopped working. Bush started becoming depressed. My theory is that a certain amount of panic ensued, and more exercise was prescribed: hence, the afternoon on the bicycle in Maryland, and the reluctance to disturb an already disturbed, irritable man. (Interestingly, the incident happened just after the President returned from a four-day trip to Europe, which had not only required him to work several hours each day but undoubtedly interrupted his exercise routine.) Then came the vacation in August, the odd, sequestered vacation, a perfect time for the President's doctor to try medication, or change medication, or adjust medication. Then Katrina and the emergence in the fall of an unenergetic, irritable, muted, unfocussed President, the man you see today.
I think she is on to the truth. Bush exhibits symptoms of deep depression.....
Comments???? paraclete answered on 11/02/05:You should ask - how come Bush managed to hide his problems for so long. We know he used to behave like this before 9/11 but he changed. Perhaps it is that without Rove's hand up his back he can no longer perform. It's likely his speech writer has forgotten to KISS his speechs and so George, with his limited abilities, is just out of his depth once more. But I find it interesting you thing George is on drugs, afterall we have though his behaviour pecular for a long time | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 11/02/05 - The war for France has begun PARIS, France -- French President Jacques Chirac has called for calm and warned of a "dangerous situation" following a sixth night of violence in poor Paris suburbs.
"The law must be applied firmly and in a spirit of dialogue and respect," Chirac told a Cabinet meeting Wednesday. "The absence of dialogue and an escalation of a lack of respect will lead to a dangerous situation."
"Zones without law cannot exist in the republic," Chirac said. His remarks were passed on to reporters by government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope.
The spokesman said Chirac acknowledged the "profound frustrations" of troubled neighborhoods but said violence was not the answer and that efforts must be stepped up to combat it, The Associated Press reported.
The unrest, triggered last week by the deaths of two teenagers, spread Tuesday night to at least nine towns in the suburbs north and northeast of Paris as police clashed with angry youths and dozens of vehicles were set on fire.
One of the worst-hit suburbs was Aulnay-sous-Bois, where 15 cars were torched and police in riot gear fired tear gas and rubber bullets at gangs of angry youths who threw stones at a firehouse and lobbed Molotov cocktails at a town hall annex, AP reported.
In Bondy, 15 cars were burned and four people arrested for throwing stones at police, AP reported officials as saying.
Police maintained a tense calm in Clichy-sous-Bois, where the rioting began last week after two teenagers were accidentally electrocuted and a third was injured while apparently trying to escape from police by hiding in a power substation. Officials have said police were not chasing the boys.
On Tuesday night, the sixth straight night of unrest, some 150 fires were reported in cars, buildings and garbage bins in the suburbs across the Seine-Saint-Denis region on the north and northeast of Paris, France-Info radio said.
The area is home mainly to families of immigrant origin, often from Muslim North Africa, AP said. It is marked by soaring unemployment, delinquency and other urban ills.
Police detained 34 people in the overnight violence, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told Europe-1 radio.
The mounting unrest also was causing strains within France's conservative government.
Sarkozy was criticized by government minister Azouz Begag for calling the protesting youths "scum," and the opposition Socialists have denounced Sarkozy's policies.
But the interior minister defended his approach.
"I speak with real words," Sarkozy told Wednesday's Le Parisien newspaper. "When you fire real bullets at police, you're not a 'youth,' you're a thug."
Sarkozy described the social aid provided to the suburbs over the years as a failure.
"We often accepted the unacceptable," he told Le Parisien. "The reigning order is too often the order of gangs, drugs, traffickers. The neighborhoods are waiting for firmness but also justice" and jobs.
Sarkosy and his political rival, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, both met Tuesday evening with victim's relatives, but the unrest spread even as they met.
The two men are locked in an increasingly tense battle to lead the right in the 2007 presidential election.
Villepin delayed for several hours his planned departure for for a visit to Canada on Wednesday, Reuters reported officials as saying, and French media said President Jacques Chirac was expected to make a statement about the unrest at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Sarkozy canceled a visit to Pakistan and Afghanistan that had been planned for November 6-9, his office announced.
On Monday night, 13 people were jailed after scored of cars were reported burned in Clichy-sous-Bois and two rooms of a primary school were set on fire along with several cars in Sevran, officials said.
On Sunday night, a tear gas grenade landed in the Clichy-sous-Bois mosque, feeding local anger. It was unclear who fired the tear gas.
The Clichy unrest was the latest in a series of incidents in the Paris suburbs.
In June, an 11-year-old boy was killed by a stray bullet in the northern area of La Courneuve. The eastern suburb of Vitry-sur-Seine made headlines in 2002 when a 17-year-old girl was set alight by an 18-year-old boy, Reuters reported.
comments : Perhaps the muslim population of Eurabia has reached critical mass .No longer content to be funnelled into slums (or as CNN calls them..suburbs)they may now be in a position to flex their political muscle in the various European nations . paraclete answered on 11/02/05:comments : Perhaps the muslim population of Eurabia has reached critical mass .No longer content to be funnelled into slums (or as CNN calls them..suburbs)they may now be in a position to flex their political muscle in the various European nations .
If so then it's time they were ejected. They can sit on their backside just as well where they came from.
But this is about more than displaced persons, it's about French arrgance. | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 10/26/05 - Call Me Ishmael. "I was a crewmember aboard the Pequod when Captain Ahab went hunting for the white whale known as Moby Dick.
For Ahab, the white whale became the embodiment of all that was evil in the world. He assembled a crew of 30 from various backgrounds and origins, not revealing his primary cause until they are well out to sea.
As the lone survivor, Herman Melville placed the burden on me to tell the tragic events of how a crew was destroyed because it went along with a mission of megalomania that offered little chance for survival.
I fear that 21st century America may be suffering from the effects of what I call the “Ahab Complex.”
One of the great lessons from that tragic voyage, and there are many, was that the crew was never honest about Ahab’s quest. Likewise, the crew was never honest with themselves".
-Byron Williams-essay cut and pasted from
Huffington Post Blog Site
What say you? paraclete answered on 10/27/05:yes no doubt america is chasing the great white whale of democracy with a meglomanic at the helm | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 10/25/05 - Iraq - North Korea
Hello warmongers:
If a strategy of pre-emptive war, based upon WMD's, hate for the US, the spread of terrorisim, and a dreadfully oppressed people, is valid, why don't we attack North Korea?
If the strategy is wrong, then why won't you warmongers say it? If it's right, why aren't you raising hell about North Korea?
If the strategy is just a subterfuge for protecting one's supply of oil, I expect the politicians to deny it, but why would you? And, if that's the reason, why can't we say it? It's certainly no worse than the reasons we gave.
excon
paraclete answered on 10/27/05:tom I don't recall ozzies being any more scared of North Korea than the yanks, no one wants a nuclear war and the overkill the yanks are capable of will do no one any good | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 10/25/05 - Iraq - North Korea
Hello warmongers:
If a strategy of pre-emptive war, based upon WMD's, hate for the US, the spread of terrorisim, and a dreadfully oppressed people, is valid, why don't we attack North Korea?
If the strategy is wrong, then why won't you warmongers say it? If it's right, why aren't you raising hell about North Korea?
If the strategy is just a subterfuge for protecting one's supply of oil, I expect the politicians to deny it, but why would you? And, if that's the reason, why can't we say it? It's certainly no worse than the reasons we gave.
excon
paraclete answered on 10/26/05:well the answer is obvious, the North Koreans are still willing to talk and they aren't hiding WMD, they admit openly they have them. Now why would you attack someone who actually has WMD and is mad enough to use them. I'll bet it would have been a different story in WWII if Japan had had nuclear weapons | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 10/23/05 - Strong Words ***Do not read on*** if you are fragile or do not like strong talk about religion::
"We live in a twisted world, where right is wrong and wrong reigns supreme. It is a chilling fact that most of the world's leaders believe in nonsensical fairytales about the nature of reality. They believe in Gods that do not exist, and religions that could not possibly be true. We are driven to war after war, violence on top of violence to appease madmen who believe in gory mythologies.
These men are called Christians, Muslims and Jews.
Osama bin Laden is insane. He believes God whispered in the ear of Mohammed 1,400 years ago about how he should conquer Arabia. Mohammed was a pure charlatan -- and a good one at that. He makes present religious frauds like Pat Robertson look like amateurs.
He said God told him to have sex with as many of the women he met as possible. I'm sorry, I meant to say "take them as wives." God told him to kill all other tribes that stood in his way or that would not placate him with assurances of loyalty or bribes. God told him, conveniently, that everyone should follow him and never question a word he said.
He sold this bag of goods to the blithering idiots who lived in the Arabian Peninsula at the time. If that weren't shockingly stupid enough, over a billion people continue to believe the convenient lies that Mohammed told all that time ago -- to this very day.
We live in a world full of insane people. Sanity is an island battered in an ocean of frothing delusion. The people who believe in science are the minority. The people who believe in bloody fairytales are the overwhelming majority.
George W. Bush is the most powerful man alive. He is a class A imbecile. He is far less intelligent than the average Christian. But like most of the others, he believes Jesus died for his sins. That idea is so perverse and devoid of logic it should shock the conscience. Instead, it gets him elected, and earns him the reverence of a great percentage of America. America! The most advanced country in the world -- run by a bunch of villagers who still believe Santa Claus is going to save them.
There is no fucking Easter Bunny. There is no Jesus waiting to return. Moses never even existed. These were all convenient lies from the men of those times to gain power. Their actions were rational -- they wanted to deceive their brethren so that they could amass power. I get their motivations. But I cannot, for the life of me, understand our motivations, thousands of years later, still following the conmen of yesteryear into our gory, bloody, violent end.
Jesus is said to have said on the cross, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" Because Jesus was insane and the God he thought would rescue him did not exist. And he died on that cross like a fool. He fancied himself the son of God and he could barely convince twelve men to follow him at a time when the world was full of superstition.
Excellent marketing by some of his followers would later rescue his botched effort. How many people saw his miracles? One? Twelve? Eighty? Why didn't he show the whole world? Not because this is some giant pop quiz by God to test us -- but because he did not perform any miracles!
Even his apostles can't agree on what miracles he supposedly carried out or when he carried them out. Or whether he returned after death or he didn't. Whether they saw him in person or just as a vision. Rational human beings shouldn't believe this kind of nonsense. Yet most of the world does.
If a man today killed his only son to show how much he loved other people, he would be considered a madman, locked in jail and earn society's contempt. Yet we think this is some sort of noble act by our Father in Heaven.
In Heaven? What, with the harps and the winged angels and the 72 virgins? My God, how stupid do you have to be to believe that?
I know most of you don't actually read your religious texts, and when you do, you assiduously try to avoid the parts that make no sense whatsoever or hide underneath the comforting grasp of your religious leaders who have concocted a bunch of circular logic (a crime to even use that word in regards to Christianity, Islam or Judaism) to shield you from the obvious folly of the written text.
So, I'm not calling you stupid if you haven't really read the material. And I know how powerful brainwashing is. We all received it when we were young and it is exceedingly difficult to break its grasp. But people dance around the issue out of politeness because they don't want to call you what you are -- ignorant.
There are a lot of people I love dearly and respect wholeheartedly who believe in religion. I hate to do this to them. But we have killed far too many people, wasted far too much time on this nonsense for us to keep going in this direction for fear of offense.
Jesus was a lunatic. God is not coming to your rescue. He hasn't come to anyone's rescue in thousands of years, including Jesus. Mohammed was a power hungry, scam artist and ruthless conqueror. Moses and Abraham were figments of the imagination some long dead rabbi. He would probably laugh his ass off at all of you who still believe the fairytales he made up thousands of years ago. He probably wouldn't even believe it if you told him.
Did I mention Judaism? The chosen people? Come on, get off it. People walk around in clothes from 18th century Russia, thinking they have been chosen by God when they look like a bunch of jackasses. I'm tired of all the deaths because we did not want to give offense. Orthodox Jews are wrong and ridiculous.
As are the orthodox and fundamentalists of all of the religions. It says in the Bible that it is an abomination to wear clothes made of two different cloths or to eat shellfish. If you think God will hate you because you mixed wool and linen or because you ate some shrimp, you are insane.
How long are we going to dance around the 800-pound gorilla in the room? The world is run by madmen. It's not just Bush and bin Laden. It is the leader of all of the countries in the Middle East, almost all of the Americas and most of the rest of the world.
Have I offended you? That's too bad. Stop killing each other in the name of false and ridiculous Gods and I will stop ridiculing you. Trust me, your offense is much worse than mine.
Right now as you read this, there are ignorant, hateful Muslims teaching other ignorant Muslims how to put on a suicide belt. There are orthodox Jews telling other Jews how they must never leave their "holy land" no matter what the consequences are to other human beings. They assure their followers -- remember, they are not the chose ones, we are. If we crush and oppress them, don't worry, God will excuse it, and even desires it, because He is on our side.
There are maniacal Christians who are praying for the end of time. Who are hoping that most of the world's population is wiped off the face of the Earth by their vengeful and murderous God. Whom they believe is, ironically, a loving God. Unless, of course, you make the fatal mistake of not kissing his ass and appeasing him, in which case he will slaughter you and condemn you to eternal torture. What kind of sick people believe this?
The kind who live next to you. The kind who voted for George Bush. The kind who send their religious leaders to the White House to argue against even-handedness in the Middle East because it would prevent their sick prophecy. The kind who have undue influence over how we use the greatest and most lethal army ever built by man.
If you don't want to be called ignorant or misinformed, then get informed. Learn the real nature of our universe and put aside old wives tales about resurrected Gods, omniscient prophets and a guy who could split the Red Sea but couldn't find where he's going in the desert for forty years.
It's the year 2005.
Let's start acting like it."-Cenk Uygur
Strong words. Do you have any comments?? paraclete answered on 10/24/05:Chou at first I thought this couldn't be Chou but then I saw it was just another C/P. If you want a debate on religion why post this on the politics board?
Belief is a strange thing but do you know what many nations of the world have in common, they allow you freedom of religious belief and they expect tolerance, that means, that idiots like this fellow don't run around ridiculing others. What do they allow freedom of religious belief, chou? it's because they don't want any more wars fought over it. They want us to fight wars over Oil and food and land but not religion.
Why do I say this fellow, and you as well for flying his flag, are idiots. It's because they critise what they have no knowledge of. Miracles happen every day, becuase God is still about, but he has left management of the Earth to us for the time being, after all you don't keep a dog and bark yourself. | | Question/Answer | | HANK1 asked on 10/21/05 - ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT:
Major General Dr. Vernon Chong, USAF, Ret. wrote this:
"Our World problem"
"To get out of a difficulty, one usually must go through it. Our country
is now facing the most serious threat to its existence, as we know it,
that we have faced in your lifetime and mine (which includes WWII! ).
The deadly seriousness is greatly compounded by the fact that there
are very few of us who think we can possibly lose this war and even fewer
who realize what losing really means.
First, let's examine a few basics:
1. When did the threat to us start?
Many will say September 11th, 2001. The answer as far as the United
States is concerned is 1979, 22 years prior to September 2001, with the
following attacks on us:
Iran Embassy Hostages, 1979;
Beirut, Lebanon Embassy 1983;
Beirut, Lebanon Marine Barracks 1983;
Lockerbie, Scotland Pan-Am flight to New York 1988;
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia Kh! obar Towers Military complex 1996;
Nairobi, Kenya US Embassy 19 98;
Dares Salaam, Tanzania US Embassy 1998;
Pentagon 2001.
(Note that during the period from 1981 to 2001 there were 7,581
terrorist attacks worldwide).
2. Why were we attacked?
Envy of our position, our success, and our freedoms. The attacks
happened during the administrations of Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton
and Bush 2. We cannot fault either the Republicans or Democrats as there
were no provocations by any of the presidents or their immediate predecessors,
Presidents Ford or Carter.
3. Who were the attackers?
In each case, the attacks on the US were carried out by Muslims.
4. What is the Muslim population of the World? 25%
5. Isn't the Muslim Religion peaceful?
Hopefully, but that is really not material. There is no doubt that the
predominately Christian population of Germany was peaceful, but under
the dictatorial leadership of Hitler (who was also Christian), that made no
difference. You either went along with the administration or you were
eliminated. There were 5 to 6 million Christians killed by the Nazis for
political reasons (including 7,000 Polish priests). (see
http://www.nazis.testimony.co.uk/7-ahtm).
Thus, almost the same number of Christians were killed by the Nazis
as the 6 million holocaust Jews who were killed by them, and we seldom
heard of anything other than the Jewish atrocities. Although Hitler kept the
world focused on the Jews, he had no hesitancy about killing anyone who got in
his way of exterminating the Jews or of taking over the world - German,
Christian or any others.
Same with the Muslim terrorists. They focus the world on the US, but kill
all in the way -- their own people or the Spanish, French or anyone else.
The point here is: that just like the peaceful Germans were of no
protection to anyone from the Nazis, no matter how many peaceful Muslims
there may be, they are no protection from the terrorist Muslim leaders and
what they are fanatically bent on doing -- by their own pronouncements--
killing all of us "infidels." I don't blame the peaceful Muslims. What
would you do if the choice was shut up or die?
6. So who are we at war with?
There is no way we can honestly respond that it is anyone other than
the Muslim terrorists. Trying to be politically correct and avoid
verbalizing this conclusion can well be fatal. There is no way to win if you don't
clearly recognize and articulate who you are fighting.
So with that background, now to the two major questions:
1. Can we lose this war?
2. What does losing really mean?
If we are to win, we must clearly answer these two pivotal questions.
We can definitely lose this war, and as anomalous as it may sound,
the major reason we can lose is that so many of us simply do not fathom the
answer to the second question: What does losing mean?
It would appear that a great many of us think that losing the war means
hanging our heads, bringing the troops home and going on about our
business, like post Vietnam. This is as far from the truth as one can get. What
losing really means is:
We would no longer be the premier country in the world. The attacks will
not subside, but rather will steadily increase. Remember, they want us
dead, not just quiet. If they had just wanted us quiet, they would not have
produced an increasing series of attacks against us over the past 18 years.
The plan was clearly for terrorists to attack us, until we were neutered
and submissive to them.
We would of course have no future support from other nations, for fear of
reprisals and for the reason that they would see that we are impotent,
and cannot help them.
They will pick off the other non-Muslim nations, one at a time. It will
be increasingly easier for them. They already hold Spain hostage. It
doesn't matter whether it was right or wrong for Spain to withdraw its troops
from Iraq. Spain did it because the Muslim terrorists bombed their train and
told them to withdraw the troops. Anything else they want Spain to do will be
done. Spain is finished.
The next will probably be France. Our one hope on France is that they
might see the light and realize that if we don't win, they are finished too,
in that they can't resist the Muslim terrorists without us. However, it may
already be too late for France. France is already 20% Muslim and fading
fast!
If we lose the war, our production, income, exports and way of life will
all vanish as we know it. After losing, who would trade or deal with us,
if they were threatened by the Muslims.
If we can't stop the Muslims, how could anyone else?
The Muslims fully know what is riding on this war, and therefore are
completely committed to winning, at any cost.
We'd better know it too, and be likewise committed to winning at any
cost.
Why do I go on at such lengths about the results of losing? Simple. Until
we recognize the costs of losing, we cannot unite and really put 100% of
our thoughts and efforts into winning. And it is going to take that 100%
effort to win.
So, how can we lose the war?
Again, the answer is simple. We can lose the war by "imploding." That
is, defeating ourselves by refusing to recognize the enemy and their
purpose, and really digging in and lending full support to the war effort. If we
are united, there is no way that we can lose. If we continue to be divided,
there is no way that we can win!
Let me give you a few examples of how we simply don't comprehend the
life and death seriousness of this situation.
President Bush selects Norman Mineta as Secretary of Transportation.
Although all of the terrorist attacks were committed by Muslim men
between 17 and 40 years of age, Secretary Mineta refuses to allow
profiling. Does that sound like we are taking this thing seriously? This is war!
For the duration, we are going to have to give up some of the civil rights
we have become accustomed to. We had better be prepared to lose some of our
civil rights temporarily, or we will most certainly lose all of them permanently.
And don't worry that it is a slippery slope. We gave up plenty of civil
rights during WWII, and immediately restored them after the victory and
in fact added many more since then.
Do I blame President Bush or President Clinton before him?
No, I blame us for blithely assuming we can maintain all of our Political
Correctness, and all of our civil rights during this conflict and have a
clean, lawful, honorable war. None of those words apply to war. Get them
out of your head.
Some have gone so far in their criticism of the war and/or the
Administration that it almost seems they would literally like to see us
lose. I hasten to add that this isn't because they are disloyal. It is
because they just don't recognize what losing means. Nevertheless, that
conduct gives the impression to the enemy that we are divided and
weakening. It concerns our friends, and it does great damage to our cause.
Of more recent vintage, the uproar fueled by the politicians and media
regarding the treatment of some prisoners of war, perhaps exemplifies
best what I am saying.
We have recently had an issue, involving the treatment of a few
Muslim prisoners of war, by a small group of our military police.
These are the type of prisoners who just a few months ago were
throwing their own people off buildings, cutting off their hands, cutting out
their tongues and otherwise murdering their own people just for disagreeing
with Saddam Hussein.
And just a few years ago these same type of prisoners chemically killed
400,000 of their own people for the same reason. They are also the same
type of enemy fighters who recently were burning Americans, and dragging
their charred corpses through the streets of Iraq.
And still more recently, the same type of enemy that was and is providing
videos to all news sources internationally, showing the beheading of
American prisoners that they held.
Compare this with some of our press and politicians, who for several days
have thought and talked about nothing else but the "humiliating" of some
Muslim prisoners -- not burning them, not dragging their charred corpses
through the streets, not beheading them, but "humiliating" them.
Can this be for real?
The politicians and pundits have even talked of impeachment of the
Secretary of Defense.
If this doesn't show the complete lack of comprehension and understanding
of the seriousness of the enemy we are fighting, the life and death
struggle we are in and the disastrous results of losing this war, nothing can.
To bring our country to a virtual political standstill over this prisoner
issue makes us look like Nero playing his fiddle as Rome burned --
totally oblivious to what is going on in the real world.
Neither we, nor any other country, can survive this internal strife.
Again I say, this does not mean that some of our politicians or media
people are disloyal It simply means that they are absolutely oblivious
to the magnitude of the situation we are in, and into which the Muslim
terrorists have been pushing us, for many years.
Remember, the Muslim terrorists' stated goal is to kill all infidels!
That translates into all non-Muslims -- not just in the United
States, but throughout the world.
We are the last bastion of defense.
We have been criticized for many years as being 'arrogant.' That
charge is valid in at least one respect. We are arrogant in that we believe
that we are so good, powerful and smart, that we can win the hearts and minds of
all those who attack us, and that with both hands tied behind our back, we
can defeat anything bad in the world!
We can't!
If we don't recognize this, our nation as we know it will not survive,
and no other free country in the World will survive if we are defeated.
And finally, name any Muslim countries throughout the world that
allow freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom of
the press, equal rights for anyone (let alone everyone), equal status or any
status for women---or that have been productive in one single way that
contributes to the good of the world.
This has been a long way of saying that we must be united on this war
or we will be equated in the history books to the self-inflicted fall of
the Roman Empire. If, that is, the Muslim leaders will allow history books
to be written or read.
If we don't win this war right now, keep a close eye on how the
Muslims take over France in the next 5 years or less. They will continue to
increase the Muslim population of France and continue to encroach little by
little on the established French traditions. The French will be fighting among
themselves over what should or should not be done, which will continue
to weaken them and keep them from any united resolve. Doesn't that sound
eerily familiar?
Democracies don't have their freedoms taken away from them by some
external military force. Instead, they give their freedoms away,
politically correct piece by politically correct piece.
And they are giving those freedoms away to those who have shown,
worldwide, that they abhor freedom and will not apply it to you or even
to themselves, once they are in power.
They have universally shown that when they have taken over, they then
start brutally killing each other over who will be the few who control
the masses. Will we ever stop hearing from the politically correct, about
the "peaceful Muslims"?
I close on a hopeful note, by repeating what I said above. If we are
united, there is no way that we can lose. I hope now after the election,
the factions in our country will begin to focus on the critical situation we
are in, and will unite to save our country. It is your future we are talking
about! Do whatever you can to preserve it.
After reading the above, we all must do this not only for ourselves,
but our children, our grandchildren, our country and the world.
Whether Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal --- and that
includes the politicians and media of our country and the free
world---Please forward this to any you feel may want, or NEED to read
it. Our "leaders" in Congress ought to read it, too.
There are those that find fault with our country, but it is obvious
to anyone who truly thinks through this, that we must UNITE."
HANK
paraclete answered on 10/21/05:ok Hank once again you have identified the problem although the good general is wrong in that he confines his blame to the extremists. Hitler could have been stopped in Germany if the Christians had stood up early, but they did not. Where did the Nazi come from, from among the general population, out of every home becuase the people allowed their children to be indoctrinated. Do you think it is any different in the Muslim world where the maddrassas operate. It was said only this week that Masharrif allows the maddrassas to operate in Pakistan becuase this is where he draws his power base from. This General misundersatnds the problem as you all do, it isn't the extremists but the acceptance of what they say which fuels the war. They could not continue to exist if the vast majority of Muslims didn't have a sympathetic ear, just as it was in Germany. The Germans may not have liked Hitlers methods but they enjoyed the prosperity and german supremacy, too late they realised they were enslaved, and it is so with the Muslims. They cheered on 9/11, who knows they probally cheered on all those other days, but the day will come when they are once again enslaved by the Saddams and Osamas.
The solution is that you have to remove the fifth column before it is to late, as you say France may already be lost, it would take acivil war to reverse the trend now. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 10/18/05 - Today's AP (Anti-American Press) Besides the report that Zimbabwe and Venezuela's leaders blame the US for "famine, war, and pollution" with Mugabe calling Blair and Bush "two unholy men of our millenium," this Associate Press blurb was in my paper this morning:
United Nations - "A Human Security Report issued Monday, and financed by five governments, paints a surprising picture of war and peace in the 21st century: Armed conflicts have declined by more than 40 percent since 1992, and genocide and human rights abuses have plummeted around the world.
The only form of political violence that appears to be getting worse is international terrorism - a serious threat that kills extraordinarily few people compared to wars, it said."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So what exactly are we supposed to take from this analysis?
Steve paraclete answered on 10/19/05:you get what you deserve | | Question/Answer | | labman asked on 09/29/05 - Majority rule? Remember these names. None of them seem to care that the majority of the voters voted for a man likely to appoint supreme court judges that have read the constitution and feel obligated to follow it in their rulings.
Akaka (D-HI)
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Boxer (D-CA)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Corzine (D-NJ)
Dayton (D-MN)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Obama (D-IL)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI) paraclete answered on 09/29/05:why would I want to remember them? give up this obscession with democracy and realise, once you appoint a leader, they rule, no democracy but autocracy. Elected or not, it is the same the world over. | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 09/29/05 - 600 Inmates left to die!
Hello:
Officers in New Orleans simply walked away from a locked and flooding jail building that housed 600 inmates. They were left to fend for themselves (how, I don't know) for 3 days.
Did some die? I dunno. Some are missing. Stay tuned.
The animals in the zoo weren't left like that. No wonder that bastard quit. To those of you who are surprised at the behavior of these sonofabitches - shame on you for not paying better attention. It doesn't, however, surprise me in the slightest.
I'm sure I'll hear from some of you that the prisoners themselves are to blame. Shame on you too.
excon
paraclete answered on 09/29/05:not a good outcome excon but typical of a corrupt police force. what can we say, afterall it's after the event | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 09/24/05 - Get Out of Iraq TV Ad Campaign Anti-war and get out of Iraq peace movements have gone to national television media. At the march today in Washington DC, people were calling for the impeachment of Bush. Welcome to the Sixties, dudes.
Comments.. paraclete answered on 09/25/05:here we go again, fonderism in full swing. This is the sort of thing that gets people killed. While I don't agree with the Iraq war and the occupation, there has to be common sense in the withdrawl of troops otherwise you will see helicopter evacuations from the roof of the US embassy again. | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 09/17/05 - Ten President Bushes I would rather have ten President Bushes than one leader like Islam produces.
Saudi King
General Mushariff
Osama bin Laden
Hosni Mubarak
Colonel Kadafi
Mohamed Atta
Cleric who heads Iran Govt(forget his name)
Etc.....
Comments? paraclete answered on 09/18/05:I have posted this as a question but I think it's also an answer
"I detest war and the meatheads who volunteer to kill other human beings. The US alliance is a funnel that draws us into unnecessary wars; first Vietnam and then Iraq."
Mark Latham (former Opposition Leader in the parliament of Australia)
Are you a meathead, chou? | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 09/10/05 - Fawlty Towers ?? Cut and Paste follows:
"These days Department of Defense is looking a lot like Fawlty Towers, the ramshackle hotel from the British TV show. And Donald Rumsfeld seems more and more like Basil Fawlty every day - with the same ineptitude, bullying, double-talk, and mendacity that John Cleese brought to the role.
Why? For one thing, the base closings that were supposed to save tons of money and increase military efficiency apparently do - er, ah - neither. For another, the GAO just confirmed that the Fawlty DoD left radiological materials in easy reach of passing terrorists for six months.
Blast it, Manuel - er, Wolfowitz - you should've done something! To top it off, those wacky Pentagoners may have left thousands of experimental monkeys - perhaps even some that were used for bioweapons research - where they could get free in the hurricane. And that's as the entire town Biloxi was turning into a bioweapon, while Homeland Security and the Republican rulers of Mississippi neglected it.
If it weren't so tragic and terrifying, it would be funny. Somebody remind me why the GOP is called the "national security party." And when you're ready to make that Don Rumsfeld biopic, call John Cleese."
Comments?? paraclete answered on 09/12/05:perhaps you are unaware that John Cleese made an excellent series of training films, perhap he could be coopted to make one for Donald Rumsfeld on how to make bureaurcacy work | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 09/10/05 - Government - ALL of it
Hello Reds and Blues:
ALL government doesn't work. Why blame the state and local and not the feds? Why blame the feds and not the state and local dudes?
They would love to have you play that game, in the hopes that you won't recognize the reality of my first paragraph. They also hope that it will prevent you from noticing the poor.
To those of you playing one side or the other, is your politics showing?
excon
paraclete answered on 09/12/05:why then do you have governments, if government doesn't work at all, why have governments, of course, government works, doing the day to day, but don't expect it to respond to the unusual, that which happens only once a year or a decade or whatever. In that situation government responds very slowly | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 09/06/05 - Fuel Saving Plan Cut and Paste
On The Lighter Side
Newswire story Minot, Dakota
""Jundt was so determined to rein in his spending on gasoline that he got out of bed early and rode his 14-year-old quarterhorse mare to work.
Jundt lives 15 miles south of Minot and works as a mechanic at Goodyear Tire & Auto Service in the city.
He said he and his co-workers had been talking about rising fuel prices, and he joked that he would ride his horse to work if gasoline ever hit $3 a gallon.
His co-workers laughed, but when the price at the pump soared to $3.20 last week, Jundt headed for the barn.
He said he was only five minutes late riding his mare, Patty, to work.
While he worked, Patty waited patiently, eating hay out of the back of a truck.""
What are your plans to save on fuel prices? :=D
paraclete answered on 09/06/05:I've been saving fuel for a long time, my travel is down to about 15,000 km a year, that saves a lot of fuel and if I stay under 100 km per hour that saves fuel too. | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 09/06/05 - Natonal Weather Service Warning --The following is a cut and paste--
On Sunday, August 28, the National Weather Service posted the following message on its website.
Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans at daybreak on Monday morning, over 12 hours later.
""URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
413 PM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005
EXTREMELY DANGEROUS HURRICANE KATRINA CONTINUES TO APPROACH THE
MISSISSIPPI RIVER DELTA
DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED
MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT
LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL
FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY
DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.
THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL.
PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD
FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE
BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME
WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.
HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A
FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.
AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH
AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY
VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE
ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE
WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.
POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN
AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING
INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.
THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY
THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW
CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE
KILLED.""
Isn't this chilling?
Comments? paraclete answered on 09/06/05:yes and still you had those who like King Canute defied the storm to move them | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 09/03/05 - "Baghdad Bush" The Iraqi insurgency is in its last throes. The economy is booming. Anybody who leaks a CIA agent's identity will be fired. Add another piece of White House rhetoric that doesn't match the public's view of reality: Help is on the way, Gulf Coast.
As New Orleans descended into anarchy, President Bush and his emergency-response team congratulated each other for jobs well done and spoke of water, food and troops pouring into the ravaged city. Television pictures told a different story.
"What it reminded me of the other day is 'Baghdad Bob' saying there are no Americans at the airport," said Rich Galen, a Republican consultant in Washington. He was referring to Saddam Hussein's reality-challenged minister of information who denied the existence of U.S. troops in the Iraqi capital.
Comments? paraclete answered on 09/03/05:Chou are you Bush bashing? I didn't think you were allowed to say anything against George, you-heard-it-first-from-me, Bush. What is it they kept saying in that TV show "Threat Matrix", we are making progress. I wonder where Katrina loomed on the Threat Matrix for George or did it just lay on the table because he was on holidays again.
When all this is over and some rational analysis of what happened is possible, I expect they are going to find a comedy of error and ineptitude that the three stooges couldn't jump over. Who are the three stooges in the comedy you might ask, My nomination, Bush, Blanco, Brown | | Question/Answer | | QueenChoux asked on 09/01/05 - Illinois Steps Up Just now, Illinois Gov. Ron Blagojevitch has invited all school age children to come to Chicago to start school. He stated we will find space to take care of their educational needs. He said since Chicago has a large population of African Americas who travelled orth from that area and environs, he was sure that our people would cooperate and give mothers and children temporary lodging.
Illinois's terrible problem is drought. We can find it in our hearts to help these children of devastation. paraclete answered on 09/02/05:great gesture but another who has difficulty grasping the size of the problem | | Question/Answer | | CeeBee2 asked on 09/01/05 - Apples and oranges. Today President Bush said, "New Orleans is more devastated than New York was."
Hmmmmmmm. Please tell me why I'm having trouble digesting that comment. paraclete answered on 09/02/05:Yes indeed how does 200,000 sq miles compare with one sq mile, How does 3,000 people compare with 1.3 million people. Do you think George is have trouble digesting the scale of the problem or is it he doesn't have Osama ben Laden to blame. Stay with him, his tiny mind will get around it eventually | | Question/Answer | | CeeBee2 asked on 08/26/05 - Iraq is no longer a state Bush Must Face Facts: Iraq is No Longer a State
Everything that held Iraq together has disintegrated or is morally unsupportable. In this op-ed from the Jerusalem Post, the author argues that the sooner the Bush Administration accepts the fact that Iraq is no more, the more quickly a long-term solution for the people in the area will be found.
By Shlomo Avineri
August 22, 2005
Original Article (English)
Despite all the recent frantic attempts at constitution-making, Iraq is not a state anymore. It is difficult for the U.S. government, as well as for the international community, to realize this, but the earlier it sinks in the better the chances for a realistic approach which could give the people in Iraq a chance for a more peaceful future.
Even since Iraq was cobbled together by British imperial dreamers in the 1920s from three very disparate provinces of the old Ottoman Empire the only way to hold it together was by brute force. The British vested power in the Baghdad-based Sunni Arab minority. The Kurdish minority in the north, as well as the Shiite majority in the south, were virtually excluded from power. Consequently, all Iraqi governments were faced with recurring mutinies: by the Kurds, by the Shiites, even by the small Christian Assyrian community.
Saddam Hussein's regime was the most brutal of all of Iraq?s Sunni Arab minority regimes, and this is why Iraq has always long been the most repressive Arab regime.
The end of Saddam Hussein also toppled Sunni Arab minority rule; the current mayhem in Iraq is mainly the work of Sunni Arabs trying to abort any alternative government. The sophistication, logistic precision and overall planning of the terrorist attacks, as well as the apparent availability of hundreds of suicide bombers, cars and explosives all point to a well-prepared campaign based on the human and material resources of Saddam's old regime.
It is obvious that the Kurds, who have enjoyed de facto autonomy since the early 1990s under the protection of the Allied "No Fly Zone," are not going to accept being subjected to Sunni Arab rule. The Kurdish regional government runs a more or less successful system of political authority. For a decade now, schools in the area have taught in Kurdish and not in Arabic, and a de facto arrangement allows the Kurdish authorities to use oil revenue in the area to pay for impressive development projects.
Given their terrible experiences in the past, the Kurds will accept only the kind of federal structure that guarantees them effective control over their own affairs, including maintaining their own armed forces.
Similarly, the Shiites are not going to accept Sunni hegemony any longer, and the brutal terrorist attacks of the Sunni insurgents against Shiite shrines only strengthens their resolve to insist on a Shiite autonomous region in the south, similar to the Kurdish area in the north.
The Sunnis rightly realize that unless they succeed in re-imposing their power by brute force, they are doomed to minority status - something which is alien to the Sunni Arab tradition. Hence the Sunni boycott of the elections and the attempt by Sunni terrorists to frighten any moderate Sunni ready to cooperate in setting up a democratic Iraq.
Constitutional phraseology is not a remedy for these conundrums.
When the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were on the verge of collapse along ethnic lines, the administration of Bush Senior urged the maintenance of the existing structures: It failed dismally. Iraq may now be going the way of Yugoslavia, yet the U.S. government does not wish to recognize this obvious fact. What is failing in Iraq is not only the attempt to build democracy, but the very attempt to keep the country together.
'Operation Spear and Dagger' by U.S.-Led Iraqi Forces [From Ad Dustour, Jordan]
There is no way of putting Humpty-Dumpty together again. The Kurds and the Shiites will go their separate ways, and both entities have the paramilitary capability to do so. There is no Iraqi army capable of maintaining the unity of the country. And, just as in the former Yugoslavia, the separate countries - Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia - have a better chance of creating coherent and democratic systems than the old coercive Yugoslavia, the same may apply to Iraq.
The U.S. will obviously have to change its policy over Iraq - maybe this is what President George W. Bush is devoting his vacation to. It would be advisable to think outside the box and realize that Iraq is not a country anymore.
This is not the end of the world, but it calls for courageous and creative thinking about alternatives.
**The writer is professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.**
What think you? paraclete answered on 08/26/05:Nationalism was the catch cry of the twentieth century. It's not suprising that in a nation as backward as Iraq it may take until the twenty first century for nationalism to arise. But is this a bad thing, to the Turks kurdish nationalism is a bad thing, they don't want a Kurdish state on their doorstep, To the US shiite nationalism is a bad thing, they don't want another Islamic state, and the sunni's don't want to loose the benefits of oil revenue, which would be totally lost if Iraq were to break up. So what's an invader to do?
Set a federal state after the american model, after all it worked in america, but they have forgotten the union wasn't forged without bloodshed and the purging of the old upper class (insert sunni in Iraq)in blood. It's time for america to bow to the inevietable and bow out. | | Question/Answer | | QueenChoux asked on 08/24/05 - Americans Disgusted with Politicians HE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
August 24, 2005
President Bush's job approval ratings are at their lowest point of his presidency as only 40% of U.S. adults have a favorable opinion of his job performance and 58% have a negative opinion, according to a Harris Interactive poll.
This is a decline from two months ago, when the president's ratings were 45% positive and 55% negative. The war in Iraq and the economy climbed to the top of a list of issues Americans say are most important for the U.S. to address. Social Security declined sharply.
At the same time, Vice President Dick Cheney's approval ratings slipped to 35% from 38% in June, while Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's approval ratings dropped to 40% from 42%. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is the only cabinet member whose approval ratings rose, to 57% from 52% in June.
Both Republicans and Democrats saw declines in their approval ratings. About one-third of adults gave a positive rating to Democrats in Congress, while 65% gave Democrats a negative rating. Republicans fared about as badly, with a 32% positive rating, down from a 37% positive rating in June.
Americans were also asked in the poll to name the two most important issues that the U.S. government needs to address. When considering the most important issues, 41% of those polled say the war is most important, sharply higher than 24% in June. The second most important issue is the economy, the poll showed.
Here are the results of the latest poll:
"How would you rate the job ______ are/is doing (excellent, pretty good, only fair, or poor)"
Comments..... paraclete answered on 08/24/05:when it gets that bad it's time to go | | Question/Answer | | powderpuff asked on 08/24/05 - Mulsim leaders held to different standard than Xian leaders? If an Islamic Imam suggested that his state or country assassinate the US President, he would (at least) be given the label of terrorist and dealt with as such. So why is it that a Christian leader can suggest that the US assassinate Chavez and his statements are brushed off with: "Private citizens say all kinds of things all the time"?
Is it because in the US we have free speech? Our speech isn't completely free, there are hate speech laws.
What is the difference between a Muslim leader calling for the assassination of a foreign leader and a Christian leader calling for the assassination of a foreign leader? paraclete answered on 08/24/05:it seems the price of free speech is to listen to the opinions of idiots. It's too high a price. Robertson is no different to the mullah preaching jihad. Robertson go a pat on the hand from Rumsfeld with a that's his opinion. A very dangerous opinion when it can affect the relationsip of nations, I wonder what price Robertson puts on other things since he wants to solve america's problems on the cheap. 228 million is too much for a war, how much to solve the stand off with North Korea over nuclear power. Could you imaging the repercussions if he had made the same remark about Kim Jong Ill | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 08/23/05 - Iraq - DISASTER
Hello wingnuts:
So, how's it gonna feel to know that we fought a war to create an Islamofacist state?
Our friends, Turkey are now gonna have to fight a war in the North with the Kurds, and our boys are stuck in the middle of a civil war between two factions of Arabs who despise the other.
What the hell are we doin???? And, is your great leader goin on another bike ride today???? Puleese!!
excon
paraclete answered on 08/23/05:as I have said elsewhere excon an exercise in futility, stupidity and very predictable. How is it that the experts in foggy bottoms couldn't see this coming.
I'm glad he's not my leader, who knows what he will do next | | Question/Answer | | CeeBee2 asked on 08/19/05 - Democracy in Iraq...What will be the look of it? Democracy does not mean the same thing to Muslims as it does to Westerners. Our brand of democracy allows the majority of voters to elect their government leaders. That's the current plan in Iraq, but will that kind of rule, without safeguards, eventually turn into tyranny? The safeguards in Western democracy are equality for women, the rights of any minority protected, freedom of the press, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, the right to seek redress of grievance, an impartial and independent judiciary, no street violence after an election, the presumption of innocence and the appeal of court decisions, respect for those who are different from you, protection of property and contracts, a stable and generally accepted civic culture, civilian control of the military and the police. Too often we take for granted these sometimes imperfectly protected freedoms and rights, these safeguards of democracy. Will the Iraqi people ever enjoy them?
paraclete answered on 08/20/05:You are speaking about what passes for democracy in america, but that is not the understanding of democracy for much of the world. Democracy in other places means free elections and orderly transfer of power, beyond that there is no protection from despotism, as there is no protection in america. The Iraqi people will not be protected from despotism but will quickly slide into the despotism of a religious state as did Iran. Once that happen steh candidates are selected by the clerics and government is not for or by the people | | Question/Answer | | purplewings asked on 08/19/05 - Some fun Reagan quotes. "Here's my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose."
- Ronald Reagan
"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
- Ronald Reagan
"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant: It's just that they know so much that isn't so."
- Ronald Reagan
"Of the four wars in my lifetime none came about because the U.S. was too strong."
- Ronald Reagan
"I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandment's would have looked like if Moses had run them through the US. Congress."
- Ronald Reagan
"The taxpayer: That's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination."
- Ronald Reagan
"Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."
- Ronald Reagan
"If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under."
- Ronald Reagan
"The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program."
- Ronald Reagan
"I've laid down the law, though, to everyone from now on about anything that happens: no matter what time it is, wake me, even if it's in the middle of a Cabinet meeting."
- Ronald Reagan
"It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."
- Ronald Reagan
"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
- Ronald Reagan
"Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book."
- Ronald Reagan
"No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.
- Ronald Reagan
So what do you think? paraclete answered on 08/20/05:Of the four wars in my lifetime none came about because the U.S. was too strong."
- Ronald Reagan
well he has ebeen proved wrong after his lifetime hasn't he | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 08/12/05 - Where it went wrong The Old Cherokee Chief sat in his humble reservation hut smoking his ceremonial pipe and eying the two visiting U.S. Government officials who had been sent to interview his opinion of the white man's progress.
"Chief", one official began, "you have observed the white man for many generations, you have seen his wars and his products -- you have seen all his progress and his problems."
The Chief nodded "Yes".
The official continued, "Considering recent events, in your opinion, where has the white man gone wrong?"
The Chief stared at the government officials for over a minute and then calmly replied:
"When white found this land, Indians were running it. No taxes. No debt. Plenty buffalo. Plenty deer, turkey and beaver. Women did most of the cooking and crop work. Medicine man free to help sick. Indian men hunted and fished all the time. We never had cheating husbands and wives--we kill cheaters."
The Chief smiled and added quietly, "White man dumb enough to think he could improve system like that!"
Reminded me of a bumper sticker I saw last week:
"Sure, you can trust the government. Just ask an Indian."
DK
paraclete answered on 08/17/05:Yes some people were very dumb | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 08/14/05 - Iraq and GW
Hello experts:
I am against the war in Iraq. It is a diversion from our war on terror, which I support.
George Bush invaded Iraq. He's the guy in charge. He's making war policy. He's they guy who made the mistake. He's the guy I blame.
How could you possibly get from the above that I (or anyone who doesn't support the war in Iraq), doesn't support the troops? I cannot make any connection between the two ideas - not even if tried really hard.
excon
paraclete answered on 08/17/05:You won't get an argument from me, excon | | Question/Answer | | QueenChoux asked on 08/16/05 - Foreign Workforce How about America having a "license" for Foreign Workers to come to America and do the work that Americans don't want to do. Like, picking fruit, childcare, cleaning buildings and private residences, restaurant work, farming jobs, construction, cab driving, ....etc...
In countries like Qatar and Kuwait, most of the work is done by foreigners while the residents have all their needs taken care of.
Wouldn't this be a step toward helping the problem of our southern border as well as other illegal immigration? Bush has mentioned something like this. paraclete answered on 08/17/05:So you think it's a great idea for the US to have a guest workers program like some of the richer third world countries. The reason these places have guest workers is the people are too lazy, or unskilled, to do the work themselves, but they don't want the workers to share in the economic benefits of their work by becomeing citizens and becoming entitled to the perks of citizenship. To do what you suggest is to reimplement slavery | | Question/Answer | | QueenChoux asked on 08/15/05 - Peace Movement The right-wing media is working overtime to discredit Iraq mom Cindy Sheehan, who is protesting outside President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Tex.
On Thursday, Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard, called Sheehan a “crackpot” on Fox News.
John Podhoretz called her protest “political theater” National Review’s blog, The Corner.
This morning, the Drudge Report posted a banner headline, “BUSH PROTESTING MOM CALLS FOR 'ISRAEL OUT OF PALESTINE' VOWS NOT TO PAY TAXES.”
And conservative columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin put up an “unconfirmed report” that Sheehan’s husband, Patrick, had filed for a divorce.
Sheehan’s son Casey was killed April 4, 2004, while fighting in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Cindy Sheehan has refused to leave the president’s ranch until he meets with her.
Do you think that the more media attention Mrs. Sheehan gets, the stronger the peace movement will get?
What are your thoughts? paraclete answered on 08/17/05:The whole thing is a circus, another person who thinks inconveniencing others is justified, even if Bush isn't home | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 08/17/05 - Help me understand
Hello experts:
Last night on TV, some right wing wacko, when asked about the bombings in Iraq, replied that it meant that we're winning.
What?? I've heard it before, and it still dumbfounds me. Tell me, please, what would winning the war in Iraq look like to you?
excon
paraclete answered on 08/17/05:what is it they think they have won? | | Question/Answer | | QueenChoux asked on 08/17/05 - Cheater's Proof "President Bush's campaign against what he once termed the "axis of evil" has suffered reverses on all three fronts in recent days that underscore the profound challenges confronting him 3 1/2 years after he vowed to take action.
First, multilateral talks orchestrated by the United States to pressure North Korea to give up nuclear weapons adjourned last week after 13 days without agreement. Then Iran restarted its program to convert uranium, in defiance of the United States and Europe. Finally, negotiators in Iraq failed to draft a new constitution by Monday's deadline amid an unrelenting guerrilla war against U.S. forces."
All the spin and lies and propaganda that the Republicans have pumped out over the last years have come back to haunt them by way of the old Sport's Adage, "Cheater's Proof". If you lie to win, you will eventually be exposed and humiliated.
Ah, the good old days when Bill Clinton was President. Compared to now, that was Paradise!! paraclete answered on 08/17/05:Bush has discovered you can bull and bluster all you want but you cannot make the world into the image you want it to be, other people have rights and ideas.
I am reminded of that old story of the water in the bucket, stir it up as hard as you want for as long as you want, then stop and observe that within a minute all has settled down and is calm again, there isn't even a ripple to say you were there. This will be Bush's legacy, to be quickly forgotten | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 07/27/05 - Oil and Terrorisim
Hello Bushies:
There is an energy bill about to be passed that does substantially nothing to end our addiction to Saudi oil.
To me, this virtually guarantees the war on terror will continue for years, resulting in untold innocent American lives lost. Further, it shows that our leaders (both left and right) don’t yet have clue how to win it.
But, what do you expect when you put an oilman in the White House and red states rule? What? You don't see a connection?
excon
paraclete answered on 07/27/05:it's easy to solve the problem abolish 4x4 | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 07/26/05 - Jane is "coming out" Fonda on warpath - Plans U.S. tour to protest Iraq policy
BY ADAM NICHOLS
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
"Hanoi Jane" is doing it again.
Actress Jane Fonda has launched an anti-Iraq war protest - infuriating veterans still seething from her Vietnam antics.
"I've decided I'm coming out," she said, announcing plans to cruise a vegetable oil-fueled bus across the U.S., stopping for high-profile protests.
It's her first active campaigning since being photographed laughing as she sat on a gun used by North Vietnamese troops to blow U.S. aircraft from the sky. The wounds from that stunt are still far from healed.
"She should keep her mouth shut," said Iraq veteran Lee Hadziyianis, 33, of New Hyde Park, Queens. "She did enough damage in Vietnam. We don't need that again." Hadziyianis, a military police officer and weapons specialist, went into Baghdad in May 2003. He returned to New York last year.
"What does she expect to achieve?" he said. "The decision makers aren't going to be influenced by her. Even if they are, pulling the troops out early would mean all those guys who died died in vain. We need to finish the job, and having somebody with her reputation making a noise from home helps nobody."
"It's like putting gasoline on a bonfire for so many veterans who will never forget what she did in Vietnam," said American Legion spokeswoman Ramona Joyce. "We don't want to see a Baghdad Jane."
The 67-year-old Fonda's plans include signing up families of Iraq war veterans to speak out against the U.S. presence, she said at a signing of her autobiography, "My Life So Far," over the weekend.
Fonda, whose popularity was shattered by the Vietnam visit, has reinvented herself this year with a starring role in the blockbuster movie "Monster-in-Law," and the publishing of her successful autobiography.
Announcing the bus tour, she said, "I have not taken a stand on any war since Vietnam. I carry a lot of baggage from that." But she has spoken against the Iraq war, claiming it was based on lies - a claim she also made about Vietnam.
"I think it was a mistake," she told the Daily News this year. "It's another example of the government lying to the American people in order to get us into war." She has said she believes American troops should be supported.
Fonda's bus tour is being planned to begin in March, the third anniversary of the start of the Iraq conflict.
For some, her return to anti-war protest is welcomed. Sue Niederer's son, Army 1st Lt. Seth Dvorin, 24, of Hopewell, N.J., was killed in February last year trying to disarm a bomb in Iraq. Said his mother, "She speaks from her heart, and it's because she's controversial that people admire her. She stands up for what she believes.
"If I'm asked, it would be my pleasure to stand with her and speak with her."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sigh...
Question? Hmmm...perhaps you'd prefer this version of Jane's "coming out" party?
Steve
paraclete answered on 07/26/05:Sad that someone of her age has to take up the cudgel to move public opinion to where it should be. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 07/26/05 - THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS Oriana Fallaci's "Il Nemico che Trattiamo da Amico
" (The Enemy We Treat as a Friend")has bee translated .Fallaci takes the position that a hostile civilization has entered Europe and that the clashes cannot long be delayed. It is a worthwhile read .She says her warnings have already been vindicated and the worse is yet to come.
"The Enemy We Treat Like A Friend" (Part I)
"The Enemy We Treat Like A Friend" (Part II)
The Islamo-fascists have not taken this lying down . just like in this country ;the fifth column are more than willing to use the legal system to their advantage . The Guardian has reported that A radical Muslim leader, Adel Smith, told the Guardian he was bringing a civil action for damages against the writer and journalist Oriana Fallaci. He has already succeeded in getting Ms Fallaci committed for trial next year in criminal proceedings for blasphemy.
Last month a judge in the northern Italian city of Bergamo agreed that the 76-year-old Ms Fallaci should answer to claims of abusing Islam in her book' The Strength of Reason.'
Is the West and Islam in an irreconciliable Clash of Civilizations ?
paraclete answered on 07/26/05:I have said a number of times since 9/11 that I considered Islam a fifth column in western society. Those who support Islam are appauled at such an idea and yet it's becoming main stream. It's difficult to deal with this idea, but there is a reality that their agenda is to islamise every society they enter.
You do need to remember that those who are not for you, are against you. This is not a hate statement, but a statement of fact. The western person puts their nation ahead of other concerns, their identity is in their nation, but the Islamic puts their islamic identity first, they are muslim first and a citizen of a country second. Where does this put them if there is a conflict, probally on the wrong side.
The time has come to be very cautious and to remember that we cannot solve the refugee problem by relocating people without reeducating them, such a thought is unthinkable to the UN. | | Question/Answer | | oncloud9 asked on 07/23/05 - One more item It doesn't matter the color of the skin or the features. paraclete answered on 07/24/05:and the question is? | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 07/21/05 - Tell me, wadd I say??
Hello experts:
"I will fire anyone involved in the leak." "I will fire anyone who committed a crime." "I will fire anyone who doesn't win his appeal after he's convicted. "I will fire anyone who is denied parole."
"Hell, I aint gonna fire any of my friends, and yes, I lied."
Are you proud of him? Or are you gonna spin it and tell me how wonderful he is?
excon
excon
paraclete answered on 07/21/05:poli speak | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 07/11/05 - Crime and Punishment
Hello experts:
I don’t understand something. Clear it up for me. There is a NY Times reporter in jail for refusing to name Karl Rove as her source. We KNOW Karl Rove was her source, so what’s the point of keeping her in jail? Is the point of her jailing to find out who her sources are, or to punish her for her arrogance?
Karl Rove is the prick who should be in the slam. Robert Novak is a prick who should be in the slam. But, no, Judith Miller is in the slam, for what I don’t know.
But, I’m sure you’ll tell me. By the way, I didn’t know arrogance was a crime. If it is, Dubya qualifies.
excon
paraclete answered on 07/11/05:well excon it might be like this. it's the home of the free and the brave right? but noone suggested it was the home of someone who is both free and brave. What you have here is someone who has stood up for her rights and found that some have more rights than others. George Orwell said it well everyone is equal and some are more equal than others. of course we know he was speaking of a police state | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 06/28/05 - Stupid?
Hello experts:
Have we always been this stupid? I doubt it, or we never would have made it to world power that we WERE.
Like all empires, this one is failing - and fast.
excon
paraclete answered on 06/29/05:It's called dumbing down. Blame it on the education system which is closer to a sausage factory than it is to higher learning | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 06/15/05 - The Mexican Border deteriorates . Mexican President Vicente Fox ordered Mexican army troops and federal agents to detain all 700 officers of the Nuevo Laredo police force June 13 and assume policing duties in the town, just across the Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas('Operation Secure Mexico'). The move, which came in response to a breakdown of law and order in the city, will be extended to other border towns, authorities said. It is indicative of the serious deterioration in the security situation along the U.S.-Mexican border.
Assailants killed Nuevo Laredo Police chief Alejandro Dominguez on June 8, just nine hours after he took over the job. Dominquez was not accompanied by a personal protection detail at the time, meaning he was either arrogant, naive about crime in the city, or under the protection of one of the city's criminal gangs who then betrayed him. One of Nuevo Laredo's many drug cartels might have killed him to make the statement that the cartels, not the police, control the city.
A federal investigation of Dominguez's killing caused tensions to rise between federal officers and local police, and on June 10 shooting erupted between the two groups, leaving a plainclothes federal agent wounded. In Chihuahua city, capital of the border state of Chihuahua, three gunmen assassinated the operations chief of police on June 13.
Corrupt police, growing anti-U.S. sentiment in Mexico and a war raging between rival drug gangs have made the border increasingly dangerous for U.S. citizens and corporations. Mexican National Police reported over 500 drug-related homicides in Mexico in the first five months of 2005, most of them occurring in towns along the border. In Nuevo Laredo alone, more than 60 killings related to organized crime have occurred, seven police officers among them.
Nuevo Laredo is a battleground for several rival drug gangs, most notably the Juarez Cartel, the Tijuana Cartel, a cartel from western Sinaloa state, and the Gulf Cartel from Matamoros. As the cartels battled over turf, they have infiltrated Nuevo Laredo's police force and placed corrupt police officers on their payrolls.
Growing anti-U.S. sentiment in Mexico, stoked by election-year rhetoric and negative publicity over the Minutemen also contributes to a dangerous situation for Americans on the border. The Minutemen are soon to expand their activities from Arizona into New Mexico and Texas.
American tourists visiting U.S. border cities are facing increased threats. Dozens of reports have appeared over the past 18 months of U.S. citizens missing in Mexico during short trips across the border. With the increase in activity by drug gangs, many of the missing likely ran afoul of organized crime. Mexican police so far have proven ineffective at solving the disappearances.
The U.S.-Mexican border has become a dangerous place.I cannot understand why President Bush did not recognize the danger of the open border and take substantive action after 9/11. Porter Goss has testified about realistic threat of a nuke coming over the Mexican border. What more evidence do we need ? Time to build an Israeli style wall and to beef up the Border Patrol armed to squad strength ; not single officers armed only with a pistol.
paraclete answered on 06/15/05:what the world needs now is another wall, eh Tom. I doubt the chinese would be pleased with the outcome of their innovation. Personally I think it's a great idea, coming as I do from a nation where the solution has been used effectively to contain dogs and rabbits. Perhaps you will be able to keep the coyotes out. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 06/07/05 - Day after D Day Headlines if today's media covered WWII the headlines might look like this :
“Mistakes and miscalculations lead to hundreds of unnecessary American deaths on Omaha beach.”
"U.S. LIVES SQUANDERED BY BLOODY ASSAULT IN FRANCE. BEACHES TAKE ON 'COLOR OF SPILLED BURGUNDY,' ONE REPORTER NOTES."
“Risky airborne operation ordered by Eisenhower” “Thousands of paratroopers missing and feared dead after disorganized jumps”
“Allied troops untrained and unprepared for combat in Hedgerow country” "No armored jeeps in theater; no body armor for American troops"
LACK OF POST-INVASION PLANNING LEADS TO NORMANDY QUAGMIRE
US Soldiers Desecrate French Church by Killing Sniper in Tower.D-Day Protesters in New York: No Blood for Brie!Sanctions Would Have Worked, Says League of Nations
“Ike ignores advice of de Gaulle and orders risky invasion of France anyway”
After the "Day of Infamy", Roosevelt still hasn't invaded Japan. While concentrating his forces against Germany .Roosevelt still misses the mark. After attacking Morroco, Tunisia and Algeria, Roosevelt and Marshall then attack Italy. Now they are attacking France. What's next, Belgium? Holland? The Netherlands? "In yet another move by the administration to deflect attention from the intelligence failures that directly caused the 12/7 attacks, a desperate FDR today unleashed the 'Allied Coalition' ;a largely American Force with token British troops ; in a mindless invasion of French beaches, halfway around the world from the real start of the present tragic conflict... in the Far East. Roosevelt lied, millions died.
Respected military experts, speaking anonomously, are concerned that the Allied advance will extend the perilous military incursion beyond the area authorized by their international mandate and push deep into the heart of Germany, resulting in unimaginable allied casualties as insurgents defend their homeland to the death. This action could result in deep divisions within the Allied camps, with the French provisional government raising strong objections.
Roosevelt, with only his poodle Churchill backing him up, escalates total war in Europe; rather than finding work for them Roosevelt sends thousands of underprivileged Americans to their certain deaths. Civilian casualties expected to be in the unacceptable range. This is too heavy a price to pay; bring the troops home now!
German prisoners protest that copies of "Mein Kampf" are being flushed down toilets
paraclete answered on 06/09/05:get a grip! | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 06/03/05 - Marijahootchi Hello anti-drug dudes:
Marijuana has never killed anyone. That's NEVER with a capital N. Everybody who smokes pot knows that. First question: Do you know that?
There's an ad put out by the Partnership for a Drug Free America. Personally, I support a drug free America, but I think the present efforts are having the opposite effect.
As an example, the ad says that there is more cancer causing tar in one joint than in a whole carton of cigarettes. That's nice and scary - but just not true. You don't get cancer from pot. If it was true, don't you think we (as a Nation) would KNOW it? We certainly KNOW that cigaretts kill people. Do you believe it? If it's true, please direct me to the scientific study that declares it to be so.
Do you think that it is the right tactic to take? Do you think pot smokers believe it? Don't you think, that if our goal was, indeed, a drug free America, that telling the truth about drugs would be a better tactic?
What is the truth about drugs? That we let Afghanistan grow poppies because it suits our political needs? That people who use crack cocaine need to be in jail a lot longer than people who use powdered cocaine? That if you get caught smoking pot, you'll never get a student loan?
I don't think those messages help us to achieve our goal. Do you?
excon
paraclete answered on 06/05/05:you won't achieve your objectives because you have the wrong goal. It isn't that your gaol to have drug free country isn't a good goal, it's just that it is an unrealistic motherhood statement, incapable of being fulfilled. Statements like this are just politicians pandering to their constituancy.
marijuana may not have caused cancer, we don't actually know that, but I strongly suspect it has figuered in more than a few suicides among depressed people by either causing the depression or deapening it. Your statement that it hasn't killed anyone is simply niave. It may actually be that those who use marijuana died of other disease, drug overdose or from other causes, What you have to know is that sustance dependency is undesirable because it may lead to disease and undesirable behavour.
Excon, stop shooting the messenger and do something about the problem | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 06/04/05 - A Nation in Decline
Hello:
I've been wondering when this country will get back on the right track. However, I don't think "when" is the right question. I think "if" is more appropriate.
Yes, we are a world power - frankly, the only world power. But we are a nation in decline. The good jobs are gone forever, and so are our morals. Pensions don't mean anything, and SS is going broke. Decent health care is out of reach for many of us with more joining the roles of the un-insured each day. I used to have hope, but now I don't.
In a nutshell, the problem is that billions of people from all over the world are willing to work harder and for less money than we are. The Chinese (billions of them), the Indians, Koreans and Pakistani’s. Hell, you don't have to look further than right here. We have illegal Mexicans (who work very hard).
I think we're toast. Europe too. Buy gold.
excon
paraclete answered on 06/05/05:all the gold in the world isn't going to save you, excon. You have fallen into a trap of your own making. You have behaved like the world owes you a living for at least the last century. Every civilisation has reached a point where it has done that and then they declined and fell apart. Your magnificant cities will turn to slums. Stop using up the resources the way you do and paying yourselves more than you are worth | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 05/26/05 - The Future of the EU The French are clearly poised to vote 'non' to the EU Constitution . The Dutch may reject it also. The Brits indicated that they would withdraw support if the French vote it down. France has been the engine
behind European unification ,and now it appears to h
Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the former French President, who drafted the constitution said :“Our current leaders are of course believers in the idea of Europe but in their heart of hearts they are not men and women who are inspired by a European feeling”My own belief is that leadership aside ;there is still enough nationalist and not enough continental feelings in the people of Europe to make this a success.
The current holder of the EU presidency ,Jean-Claude Juncker ,has an intersting take on the future of EU democracy . He said that France and Netherlands should repeat their elections until they get it right.
This is some change . A few years ago a unified European State was a foregone conclusion . They would not have gone to a common currency if they had doubt about that outcome.But economic results are not the only value that people persue.
They crafted a 300 page constitution . I guess there was less unity then they believed . 300 pages may be a bureaucrats and a lawyer's wet dream ,but it hardly makes for good governance . The more complex it is, the less the ordinary citizen can trust it.Lawyers ;scholars ;judges have for years studied and interpreted the brief by comparison US Constituion . The EU version must be mind boggling . How could the people possibly know what they are voting for ? I don't know for sure ;but it appears to me ;short of some miracle ;that the concept of a democratic central European State is DOA .
paraclete answered on 05/28/05:how different would the result be if the continent spoke French? | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 05/26/05 - Pentagon says detainee retracts Koran allegation Thu May 26, 2005 04:18 PM ET
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Guantanamo detainee who told an FBI agent in 2002 that U.S. personnel there had flushed a Koran in a toilet retracted his allegation when questioned this month by military investigators, the Pentagon said on Thursday.
"We've gone back to the detainee who allegedly made the allegation and he has said it didn't happen. So the underlying allegation, the detainee himself, within the last two weeks, said that didn't happen," chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita told a briefing.
An FBI document, dated Aug. 1, 2002, contained a summary of statements made by the detainee in two interviews with an FBI special agent at the prison for foreign terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The names of the detainee and the agent were redacted.
"The guards in the detention facility do not treat him well. Their behavior is bad. About five months ago, the guards beat the detainees. They flushed a Koran in the toilet," the FBI agent wrote.
Di Rita told reporters on Wednesday the U.S. military, as part of an inquiry into Koran treatment at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo, interviewed the same detainee on May 14, and that the man did not corroborate the earlier allegation. But Di Rita at the time said he did not know whether the man actually had recanted his earlier statement.
During his news conference on Thursday, Di Rita said he changed his account of what the detainee had said after getting more information from the commander of the Guantanamo prison, Brig. Gen. Jay Hood.
NOT KNOWLEDGEABLE
Di Rita did not identify the detainee or release his exact words.
Another senior Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, said the detainee "indicated, when asked about the desecration, that he was not knowledgeable of anything."
The American Civil Liberties Union released the FBI document and a series of others it obtained from the government through the Freedom of Information Act. In other documents, FBI agents stated that Guantanamo detainees also accused U.S. personnel of kicking the Koran and throwing it to the floor, and described beatings by guards.
The Bush administration has denounced as wrong a May 9 Newsweek article that stated U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo had flushed a Koran down a toilet to try to make detainees talk. The magazine retracted the article.
The ACLU on Thursday released another FBI document that stated that Defense Department personnel at Guantanamo impersonated State Department and FBI officials during prisoner interrogations at the jail. Most of the document is redacted.
Asked whether Defense Department personnel did this, Di Rita said, "I don't know the answer," but that the matter was part of an ongoing military investigation.
© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Can we now drop the Koran flushing non-issue and stop trying to equate the U.S. with kidnapping, head chopping, suicide bombing, Islamic terrorists that think nothing of desecrating our flag, eliminating Jews, Christians and yes, children in the name of Allah?
Steve paraclete answered on 05/28/05:and I wonder how hard they lent on him | | Question/Answer | | purplewings asked on 05/23/05 - Does the government fund your cancer prescriptions? Probably not since the money is going here instead:
ALBANY, N.Y. (May 22) - Scores of convicted rapists and other high-risk sex offenders in New York have been getting Viagra paid by Medicaid for the last five years, the state's comptroller said Sunday.
Audits by Comptroller Alan Hevesi's office showed that between January 2000 and March 2005, 198 sex offenders in New York received Medicaid-reimbursed Viagra after their convictions. Those included crimes against children as young as 2 years old, he said.
Hevesi asked Michael Leavitt, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in a letter Sunday to "take immediate action to ensure that sex offenders do not receive erectile dysfunction medication paid for by taxpayers."
A call to Leavitt's office was not immediately returned Sunday.
According to Hevesi, the problem is an unintended consequence of a 1998 directive from federal officials telling states that Medicaid prescription programs must include Viagra. His office discovered that the state was helping sex offenders pay for Viagra by checking Medicaid pharmacy expenditures against the state's sex offender registry.
New York's two senators said Sunday the problem should be corrected.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement that it was ''deeply disturbing and runs contrary to the purpose of Medicaid, which is to provide health care coverage for uninsured, low-income individuals.'' Clinton, a Democrat, urged Leavitt to look into the matter, and said she would explore legislative options.
New York's other senator, Democrat Chuck Schumer, said at a press conference in New York City that he hoped the issue could be resolved without a bill, but he's prepared to offer one if needed.
''While I believe that HHS did not do this intentionally, when the government pays for Viagra for sex offenders, it could well hurt many innocent people,'' he said.
New York auditors are reviewing whether other prescription drugs for sexual dysfunction are being reimbursed by Medicaid for convicted sex offenders, Hevesi spokesman David Neustadt said.
While the auditors didn't review the situation on Viagra reimbursement by Medicaid in other states, he said they have no indication that the policies are different elsewhere.
paraclete answered on 05/24/05:mine does | | Question/Answer | | powderpuff asked on 05/22/05 - Afghanistan dilemma What is going on? I don't understand. Afghanistan grows opium poppys and it seems to be allowed. Though there is an eradication effort, in reality, there isn't. Nobody seems to be willing to stop their heroin farming businesses. And nobody seems to be getting arrested for growing dope. Meanwhile, I read today that the Afgan leader, Mr Karzai - who is due to meet President George W Bush on Monday - said on Saturday he would request the handover of all Afghan detainees in the US custody and also control over US military operations in Afghanistan. The cable said: "Although President Karzai has been well aware of the difficulty in trying to implement an effective ground eradication programme, he has been unwilling to assert strong leadership, even in his own province of Kandahar." (you can read the full news story here http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4570157.stm.
Is our government going along with a country who supports itself with heroin while at the same time putting people in our own country in prison for a drug that is much less harmful? Doesn't Mr Karzai know that our government classifies the relatively harmless drug marijuana as a dangerous and illegal narcotic belonging to the same class as heroin and that we put people in prison for that?
I'm concerned and confused.
Mr Karzai also said he would demand that all Afghan prisoners should be returned to his government, regardless of whether the US was holding them in Afghanistan, at Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere.
He insisted that US military must in future co-ordinate its military operations with Kabul and end searching people's homes without a warrant.
Is our government going to go along with that???
paraclete answered on 05/23/05:It's simple, your government can use non violent means to have Afganistan change it's policies towards cultivation of opium poppy, but it has no right to use military means.
Find these people a cash crop which yeilds more than opium and you have solved the problem, but feed the people. But please stop trying to clone the US throughout the world | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 05/23/05 - Government Actions !! We must judge a government by its general tendencies and not by its happy accidents.
Does this quotation apply to most Governments ?
paraclete answered on 05/23/05:Roland you know that governments emphasise their happy accidents in order to stay in power. The tendency in most governments is to give more power to government, therefore private citizens should judge a government by it's ability to empower it's population | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 05/20/05 - The domino effect well well well . it appears that I need to occasionally log onto al-Jazeera and Jordanian Times to find something that the US Press should be excited to report ; a pro-democracy protest in Syria :
Hundreds of demonstrators have rallied outside Syria's feared state security court, chanting for freedom and demanding an end to the 42-year-old state of emergency.
The Washington Post buried this story Wednesday :on page 10 I think .Apparently Assad is feeling the heat .
Beset by U.S. attempts to isolate his country and facing popular expectations of change, Syrian President Bashar Assad will move to begin legalizing political parties, purge the ruling Baath Party, sponsor free municipal elections in 2007 and formally endorse a market economy, according to officials, diplomats and analysts.
Assad's five-year-old government is heralding the reforms as a turning point in a long-promised campaign of liberalizing a state that, while far less dictatorial than Iraq under Saddam Hussein, remains one of the region's most repressive. His officials see the moves, however tentative and drawn out, as the start of a transitional period that will lead to a more liberal, democratic Syria. .
Apparently Condi Rice was doing a little more than sight-seeing when she visited Iraq last weekend.
"We're going to go back and look again at what the neighbors can do to get the Syrians to stop support for these foreign terrorists who we believe are gathering on Syrian territory and coming across," Rice said. "Their unwillingness to deal with the crossings of their border into Iraq is frustrating the will of the Iraqi people" and leading to deaths of innocent Iraqis, she added.
Johan Goldberg at National Review said it best . It is just amazing how what would have been remarkable six months ago and unimaginable 2 years ago becomes boring today.
You would think this would be sensational news;worthy of our free press to cover in greater detail that the Bush Doctrine is working . paraclete answered on 05/20/05:I agree, it is boring to hear repressive governments are going to liberalise their hold when we all know what we want to here is they are going to democratise. Syria should be feeling isolated around about now. The realisation that they no longer have a powerfull ally to the east should be sinking in, and the loss of Lebanon will be a clear indicator that any expansionist objectives must be burid forever. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 05/20/05 - WTC Survey OK folks, check out the following images and give us your vote:
Twin Towers II
Freedom Tower
Please also explain the reasoning behind your vote...and I consider your opinion of the Donald to be irrelevent for the purpose of this survey.
Steve paraclete answered on 05/20/05:freedon tower, why give Donald another chance to make money | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 05/18/05 - Civil war - Iraq
Hello pundits:
Is Iraq in the midst of a civil war? How would we know? Does somebody have to declare it as such? If somebody does (I doubt Bush would), what do we do? What is the point of our continued occupation? Can the insurgency outlast us? Really, I'm not sure what we're doing there anymore. WMD's?? Ok, that's settled. Regime change?? Ok, that's settled. Security for their country?? That'll never happen. We can't even secure our own country and we have friends on all sides.
By the way, I suggested round about 2 years ago that Iraq would devolve into civil war, and I think it did. History shows that the average insurgency lasts 9 years. We've been there for 2. Are we going to stay for another 7?
I don't think we will. Should we leave early, what do you think will happen, both here and there. Of course, if you think we'll leave with everything being hunky dory, I'm accepting bids for the Space Needle.
excon
paraclete answered on 05/18/05:So many questions and the answer is YES. | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 05/12/05 - Who is running the show?? The Secret Service, that's who!
Hello experts:
While Washington DC was under attack the president was on a bike ride and the Secret Service didn't tell him until he was done riding - a full 15 minutes into the attack. I say attack because, for all intents and purposes, we WERE under attack. It was only determined afterwards to have been an errant private pilot.
But, for those 15 minutes, somebody other than the elected leader, was making decisions for the country. Who was that? Were they doing it under Bush's orders? Isn't this kinda like his reading a story to some kids after he was informed about 9/11? Am I missing something here?
excon
paraclete answered on 05/16/05:well you could hope they could handle the incident without requiring the heavy handed approach of GWB. Who knows what he might have done, nuked N. Korea, bombed Iran or just run for cover and disgraced himself
There was a movie years ago which would fit right in this scenario the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming! | | Question/Answer | | sapphire630 asked on 05/16/05 - What sense is this.... I live by the 911th air lift base, an armory, and some other military & reserve bases that are to be closed.
Not even 2 years ago the township police were given thousands and thousands of dollars because we were considered high risk to terrorism. Now these bases are being closed down. paraclete answered on 05/16/05:you should be pleased then that this risk of terrorism has been averted | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 05/09/05 - Democrat logic...an oxymoron? From Mario Cuomo's radio address of April 30th:
"Now, the Republicans in the Senate, instead of dealing with his litany of failures, are threatening to claim ownership of the Supreme Court and other federal courts, hoping to achieve political results on subjects like abortion, stem cells, the environment and civil rights that they can not get from the proper political bodies: the Congress and the presidency.
How will they do this? By destroying the so-called filibuster, a vital part of the 200-year-old system of checks and balances in the Senate that allows the fullest possible debate before one of the president's choices for the Supreme Court or other federal courts is allowed to take his or her place on the bench. That would be a change so undesirably destructive that it has been called the nuclear option.
The Republicans say it would assure dominance by the majority in the Senate. That sounds democratic until you remember that the Bill of Rights was adopted, as James Madison pointed out, in order to protect all Americans from what he called, the tyranny of the majority. And it sounds nearly absurd when you learn that the minority Democrats in the Senate actually represent more Americans than the majority Republicans do.
The public surveys reveal that most Americans believe there appears to be no good reason to change the Senate process after all these years. In fact, there is none."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Let me get this straight...Democrats believe "the Congress and the presidency" are the proper bodies through which to achieve political results?
More Americans are represented by Democrat senators than Republican Senators, so the Republicans don't really have a majority in the Senate?
paraclete answered on 05/10/05:fillibuster; a word which means speaking when you have nothing of value to say. Why don't you guys learn about coming to the question, instead of allowing the tyrany of the minority to reign | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 05/10/05 - So much for diplomacy Iran confirmed American fears about nuclear proliferation when its Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told the UN at the NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY REVIEW CONFERENCE that his country indeed intends to pursue nuclear enrichment procedures . Though enriched uranium can be used either to fuel power reactors or for atomic weapons production, Iran’s actions are in direct violation of earlier commitments to Britain, France and Germany ( The EU–3 )to suspend such activities (see Paris Accords ). Diplomatic efforts by the EU-3 have failed . It appears that Iran have made suckers of "the international community " (suprise ;suprise ;suprise !)and have brought the crisis to a new level.
With N. Korea pulling out of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT);and many nations both legit and rogue adopting the attitude that they need nukes for security and prestige ;does NPT have any teeth left ? NPT does not ban the peaceful uses of nuclear energy ,and that is the loop hole that rogue nations have used to jump start their weapons programs . Russia is actively assisting Iran in the project ;and the EU-3 are still more concerned with their trade with Iran to add any muscle to any tougher measures . We know what will happen if we try to take action in the UN (been there done that ). So what’s next?
..............................................
Meanwhile NPT also demands a disarmament or reductions by existing nuclear powers .According to the State Dept. “The United States has reduced its nuclear weapons stockpile by more than 13,000 nuclear weapons since 1988. When the Treaty is fully implemented by 2012, the U.S. will have reduced by about 80 percent the number of strategic nuclear warheads it deployed in 1990.” So we are dismantalling our deterence at the same time that proliferation is close to getting out of control . Perhaps a nuclear test by N.Korea ; days after they tested a missle pointed at Japan ;will shake the world out of it's slumber .
paraclete answered on 05/10/05:shake the world out of it's slumber, or shake the US out of it's slumber? | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 05/10/05 - Hypocricy
Hello experts:
Don't you just love it when a right winger who staunchly opposed any civil rights legislation for gays, turns out to be a fag and a cheat?
Well, you might not, but I sure do.
excon
paraclete answered on 05/10/05:always the cynic excon | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 05/10/05 - Real ID Today ,again James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis. argues the merits of the 'Real ID' law which would mandate among other things a national standardized drivers license to be issued by the States.
The House on Thursday passed HR 1268, the supplemental appropriations bill to pay for combat and related operations on the Iraq and Afghanistan (the Senate is likely to pass it this week). Attached to the bill, are the "Real ID" provisions which would require drivers license applicants to show a photo ID, a birth certificate, proof of their Social Security number, and a document showing their full name and address. All of the documents then would have to be checked against federal databases.The act would give states three years to comply. After that, licenses from states that did not meet the new federal standards could not be used to board an airplane or enter federal buildings among other punitive restrictions . States would have the right to refuse ,but their citizens would suffer unfairly as a result.
The National Conference of State Legislatures has blasted the plan as an unfunded federal mandate that could cost states $500 million.Some states might not be able to afford it without federal funding ; which is of course not included in the measure.
The legislation grants authority to the Secretary of Homeland Security to require biometric information on IDs in the future(ie . retina scan, fingerprints, DNA information, or r.f. technology).All the information obtained by the States will be collected in a central database.
Using the 9-11 Commission's recomendation for a national ID as his justification Sensenbrenner thinks that Americans are willing to sacrifice in order to improve national security(I guess he means I won't object to the extra length of time I have to stand in line at DMV ;or the needless processing delay it will cause ;or the added expense that the States will pass on to the drivers to offset the costs of the plan);but that is entirely besides the point. The REAL ID Act will essentially transform state motor vehicle departments into agents of the federal government.Might as well repeal the 10th Amendment.
All this without any real assurances that the system would make any difference. So what if the 9-11 hijackers were able to obtain driver's licenses for id. ? Does anyone think that if these new laws are enacted that criminals/terrorists will suddenly get a propensity to obey the law ? The way to address the threat is to be politically incorrect and to start screening /profiling Middle Eastern young men before they get on a plane . When my grandma starts flying planes into buildings ,by all means profile her too. paraclete answered on 05/10/05:seems the US is about to catch up with the rest of the world | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 04/25/05 - A Time to Kill Elliot's question on sexual predators (in and out of the church) on another board got me thinking again.
Apparantly, others are thinking as well. Read on:
A time to kill
Doug Giles (archive)
April 23, 2005 | Print | Send
Ecclesiastes states, “There is an appointed time for everything … a time to give birth and a time to die; a time to embrace and a time to shun embracing,” and among other things, … there is, “a time to kill.” Guess what time I think it is for John Evander Couey and David Onstott?
With our nation’s attention rightly riveted on the macabre murders of little Jessica Lundsford and Sarah Lunde, I think I just heard the clock strike Death:30 for the irretrievable duo who carried out these sickening slayings. I question the humanity, sanity, and if you’re religious, the sanctity, of everyone who vies for sustaining the lives of Couey and Onstott, the confessed murderers of 10-year-old Jessica and 13-year-old Sarah.
In addition to it being a time to kill these two sacks of dung, I think the judicial morons who previously gave wispy sentences to such dregs and released them without performing a chemical castration and a phallectomy with a rusty fork, and without branding SOB on these losers’ foreheads, ought to go directly to prison for aiding and abetting these bastards. And I use the word bastard in a biblical sense.
Furthermore, I believe Kelly Lunde, Sarah’s mom, who actually dated Onstott, the convicted rapist who eventually killed her daughter, who didn’t report her child missing for two, that’s two, days, should to be forced to spend a few years in the Stupid Ward of What Were You Thinking Hospital.
Y’know, it’s amazing to me that these two recidivist rapists were allowed to free range while our legal wizards felt the need to Lojack Martha Stewart and treat her like Hannibal Lecter for lying. I would venture to say that the scales of justice are now more unbalanced in the United States of Asininity than Margot Kidder trying to work a treadmill after a quart of corn liquor.
Let me see if I’m getting this “sage” judicial insight right. Tight-leashing a 60-year-old billionaire blonde Jurassic diva in her multi-million dollar mansion is a must, and letting Chester the Molester run free and relatively unsupervised to skulk our schoolyards, playgrounds, ice cream parlors and churches is okay?
What the heck is wrong with us?
How many raped pre-pubescent girls have to be buried alive in shallow graves before we enact lethal Moses-like sanctions on these nightcrawlers and send them quickly to a just God who will, in turn, overnight them to an eternal hell?
Here’s what I think needs to happen to a person found guilty of raping and/or killing a kid.
I think said person should …
1. Be executed immediately. Like, within a couple of days. Yep … wait maybe two days, max, after the conviction, and then swiftly turn them into a grease stain. And just to err on the side of mercy, because I’m a Christian, have whatever family and friends who’ll claim them come to pay their last respects, vomit on them or whatever.
After that, let them have their last supper of Vienna Sausages, pickled eggs and a nice cold cup of tobacco spit, then have the father of the victim they raped/killed come forward and throw the switch on a substantial pack of C4 and publicly explode these Darwinian holdovers to smithereens. With, of course, the entire nation watching and a live cable feed fed straight to every jail cell inhabited by a child molester.
2. If that’s too much to ask of our wuss culture, and the hellions get off light by getting to spend the rest of their “life” in prison, then let’s make certain that they get to stay in the most sadistic hell-hole in the country. A place that makes Abu Ghraib look like a kibbutz. Here’s how it’d work. When they arrive at the worst place in the world, we should make certain that the GP comes out to greet them in the prison yard with the perp’s face plastered up on a big screen.
Then, just so there is no confusion with regard to what they’re in for, we could put their little victim’s face up on the overhead, describe what these dogs did to her, give everyone their new cell number, tell everyone where they’ll be working for the next few years, show all inmates the precise spot the beasts will eat lunch, issue them a pink unitard to wear and then … let the chips fall where they may.
3. And for the convicted sexual predators who are, for whatever ridiculous reason, out of jail and on parole or given probated sentences, I say we corral these cats quickly and do due diligence before the lechers lapse. With the ones we are able to locate and capture, I say we crudely spot-weld on the inside of these violent felons’ empty skulls a transmitter that also has the ability to taser the culprit should the need arise. For example: say Dufus decides he wants to leave his cinder-block-based trailer home and stroll across county or state lines. The person monitoring the rapist (who would be paid for by the parents of the felon, who failed in their task to properly raise a child) sees he’s moving out of prescribed bounds and boom … hits a button and tasers Mr. Palm Pilot into Strokeville right where he stands. Shock the monkey! Whaddya think?
Now, for the child molesters and rapists who are out of custody and making normal people feel awkward, I think you might want to ask authorities to let you back into prison, because I sense that America is about to make you very uncomfortable. Yes, I believe parents, grandparents, pastors, and some politicians are about to turn the tables on you genetic anomalies, ratchet up the heat and righteously make you, not the innocent, feel ill at ease. So … be afraid. Be very afraid.
My ClashPoint is this: Concerned parent: do a quick check on www.sexualoffenders.com and get ready to get freaked out about how many live a few doors down from you. However, when you do get the lowdown on where these lowlifes live, don’t spend your family’s time locked indoors in fear of such culprits.
Let’s make them shake in their boots. Let’s train our little girls to be Lara Croft tomb raiders. Let’s get the local TV news to run dailies of their faces and the places they inhabit. Let’s get the newspapers to have a special sewage section dedicated to showing and keeping tabs on them. Let’s put HazMat signs in the front yards where these creeps live.
Let’s force them out of our communities and let them get their own place where all of them can feel at home and not be judged, and where they can do the dirty deeds to each other. I know a perfect place; it is 666 Lucifer Lane, close to the river Styx on Dante’s second concentric circle. And I’m positive, positive, there would be a lot of people available to help get them there.
Doug Giles' provocative weekly one-hour radio program, 'The Clash', has re-launched with several new features. Go to clashradio.com and hit 'listen live.'
©2005 2004 Doug Giles
paraclete answered on 04/25/05:applause, applause yes let's get rid of the wusses of our society who protect the deranged rather than protect the innocents.
Am I politically incorrect? God I hope so! | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 04/20/05 - Larry Kudlow has an important article in National Review about China. There’s a lot of bad political and economic blood developing between China and Japan, and China and the U.S. None of it is going to lead to any good.
Anti-Japanese demonstrations have broken out in Shanghai and Hong Kong, with Chinese authorities looking on with winks and nods. The Chinese want Japan to apologize for aggression in the 1930s and 1940s, although Japan has done so about forty times in recent years. The Chinese also claim not to like Japan’s newly revised history textbooks on the subject. Then there’s the ongoing squabble about oil and gas reserves on some offshore islands and the matter of Japanese membership in the U.N. Security Council.
But the problems here run much deeper. China doesn’t much like the fact that Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi is pulling his country even closer to the U.S. in the world terror war. This renewed U.S.-Japan alliance also implies that a free and democratic Taiwan will be protected against Beijing’s new “anti-secession” law.
Japan is also firm in supporting U.S. efforts to stop North Korea’s military and nuclear buildup. China dominates North Korea, so it could really put the pressure on Kim Jong Il to renegotiate a nuclear agreement. But China only says it will help with the North Korea problem and never seems to do very much.
China shows its two faces all the time. It praised the late Pope John Paul II upon his passing and then promptly jailed a Catholic bishop and a priest. It has been liberalizing its economy and reforming local government, but it is still a dictatorship without free national elections. Though it has taken steps to join the community of nations, it now appears to be launching a newly militant program of nationalism, with a sizeable military buildup. Japan may be the proximate target, but one ultimately suspects that all this is aimed at the U.S.
The U.S., however, isn’t helping matters by threatening to launch a currency- and trade-protection war against China. The U.S., Japan, and the rest of the G-7 nations are putting the heat on China to revalue, or “up-value,” the yuan and end its peg to the U.S. dollar. This is allegedly to correct global trade imbalances and stop “cheap” Chinese exports from flooding U.S. and European markets. But any meaningful currency adjustment would have to be a yuan revaluation of at least 25 percent. That would require significant tightening of Chinese monetary policy, which, in turn, would cause a big slowdown in Chinese economic growth.
Is that what we really want?
The threat of a currency war could be an unnoticed factor in the recent U.S. stock market plunge. A much slower China economy would take a percentage point or two off U.S. economic growth, especially in areas like commodities, cyclical industries, tech, transportation, shipping, and trucking. These are the exact market sectors that are getting hammered on Wall Street.
Have the U.S. Treasury, the G-7, and the IMF forgotten the recent history of misbegotten currency manipulation? When several Asian currencies were forced to de-link from the U.S. dollar in the 1990s, world deflation followed. Floating exchange rates were a big mistake then, and could be a big mistake now.
Treasury man John Snow insists on floating rates worldwide, but he forgets that emerging-country currencies don’t float — they sink. Aren’t we yet persuaded that nations cannot devalue their way to prosperity? Or that currency stability is better than currency chaos?
China, remember, has a shaky banking system plagued with bad state-sponsored loans made to failing nationalized companies. A floating yuan might rise in the short run, but it could crash in the medium term as foreign investors withdraw their capital flows for fear of instability.
Fortunately, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited China recently, she avoided any mention of forcing a currency change. But John Snow, encouraged by congressional Republicans, keeps pressing the unpopular point. Where’s the policy coordination inside the U.S. government?
Protectionist pressure on the Chinese is also rising. A trade-opening textile agreement has resulted in a temporary burst of Chinese clothing exports to the U.S. American clothing makers have had years to prepare for this, but instead they’re suing the U.S. government on so-called “anti-dumping” grounds. The Chinese government is meanwhile accusing the U.S., and rightly so, of reneging on the free-trade textile deal.
Why is the U.S. threatening economic warfare against China? Currency protection and trade protection not only blunt economic growth, they sour international political relations. If you add in the vexing problem of nuclear proliferation in North Korean and the historic ill-feelings between China and Japan, you’ve got a real geopolitical and economic mess brewing in northeast Asia. With no apparent solution in sight.
http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp?ref=/kudlow/kudlow200504191337.asp
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In next months Atlantic Monthly Robert Kaplan will have a large article on the US Navy . He thinks that as China grows a cold war will inevididibly happen between the US and China ;waged primarily on the sea. I say we are already there . In the 90s the Chinese took great advantage of the Clinton Administration ,and used technology transfers /thefts to greatly increase their military capacity. (God knows what happened during Bush I with his friendly relationship with them).
The first international crisis that GW Bush faced was the downing of an American EP-3E spy surveillance plane by an "over zealous "Chinese pilot who collided with the plane forcing the U.S. crew to make an emergency landing on Chinese soil.. (although the opening salvo may have been the "accidental bombing "of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade by "NATO "). Taking a page from the Iranian Mullahs ;the Chinese looked the other way while "outraged students "stormed the US Embassy in Beijing with paint, stones, and bricks.Anti-American remarks were written on the walls surrounding the area and personel were trapped in the compound(also simular to the current 'student rage' by Chinese students over the Japanese history text books) . Bush being new on the job (or showing great political savvy depending on who you listen to showed remarkable restraint ;made no inflamatory comments about the Chinese and brokered a resolution to the crisis.I do not think that Bush "lost face" over the incident ;but the Chinese might think differently ,and they may have drawn false conclusions of our resolve over matters like Taiwan.
Kudlow may be right .The last thing that China needs is a Japan ;already an economic powerhouse that could become a naval threat to their ambitions in a hurry ;teaming up with the United States to check China's regional hegemony ambitions. paraclete answered on 04/23/05:well Tom now's the time for a quick preemptive strike to put those uppty chinese back in their place | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 04/22/05 - Drug Dealers
Hello experts:
Some time ago, I posted several question about the pharmaceutical industry. I called their television adds and their marketing strategy nothing more than drug dealing. - in the worse sense of that word. The right wingers among you (Elliot) suggested that it was nothing more than ordinary good ‘ol American advertising and selling.
That is true. However, I maintain that we have certain professions in this country, that don't benifit us when they "sell" their services to us. Your personal physician comes to mind. He’s not like the used car dealer who you know is looking out for his own pocketbook. Most of us assume that our doctors are looking out for OUR health - rather than THEIR own retirement. Yes, it’s prudent to seek a second MEDICAL opinion, but we don’t shop around for doctors based upon price. And I don’t want to begin.
The pharmaceutical companies encourage doctors to prescribe certain medicines. How? Gifts, that’s how. TV advertising encourages US to ask for certain medicines - even though we might not know what they treat.
Nope! From my point of view, I would rather my doctor prescribe a medicine solely because I need it - not because I asked for it or the pharmaceutical companies need it to be sold.
Anything else is drug dealing - pure and simple.
Go ahead - argue with me.
excon
paraclete answered on 04/23/05:I won't argue with you excon. Fortunately I am spared the sort of advertising you have in the States,we have few pharmeautical adverts, those we do get are aimed at obesity or pain killers, but this is the result of our PBS, which regulates what drugs are available and keeps prices down, lessing the advantage for drug companies to advertise. What I know is I have had prescribed a number of drugs which don't work, mainly in the anti-inflammatory group, and I wonder, why were these prescribed? | | Question/Answer | | tarot10 asked on 04/19/05 - Prediction of new Pope Does anyone understand how some people were able to predict who was going to get elected pope and even what name he was going to choose to go by?
The television station I was watching mentioned that authors of books guessed both, but I would like to understand how they came about that conclusion.
Does anyone have any clues? paraclete answered on 04/19/05:what is it you think a man in an occupied country was capable of doing? | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 04/07/05 - He really is stupid!
Hello experts:
I didn't graduate from Yale. Anybody who did is usually held in high esteem by me. And, I have tried to give him every benefit of the doubt. But, I have determined, after watching him intensely, that he really is stupid.
What did he do this time? Repudiated our debt!
It's a good thing the rest of the world also knows he's stupid. Otherwise our economy would be in the crapper today.
No? Tell me why.
excon
paraclete answered on 04/09/05:are we expected to know what you are actually talking about? forgiving debt for a developing country is not a bad thing, it helps them get their economy back on a proper footing | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 04/05/05 - Soldiers Returning from Iraq Sunday, someone on TV stated the one out of four soldiers returning from Iraq combat had symptoms of mental illness. What is this about? What kind of symptoms of mental illness?? What percentage of soldiers in previous say 20th Century wars, had "battle fatigue". paraclete answered on 04/06/05:do you think this might help you understand
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a natural emotional reaction to a deeply shocking and disturbing experience. It is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is defined in DSM-IV, the fourth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. For a doctor or mental health professional to be able to make a diagnosis, the condition must be defined in DSM-IV or its international equivalent, the World Health Organization's ICD-10.
In the previous version of DSM (DSM-III) a criterion of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was for the sufferer to have faced a single major life-threatening event; this criterion was present because a) it was thought that PTSD could not be a result of "normal" events such as bereavement, business failure, interpersonal conflict, bullying, harassment, stalking, marital disharmony, working for the emergency services, etc, and b) most of the research on PTSD had been undertaken with people who had suffered a threat to life (eg combat veterans, especially from Vietnam, victims of accident, disaster, and acts of violence).
In DSM-IV the requirement was eased although most mental health practitioners continue to interpret diagnostic criterion A1 as applying only to a single major life-threatening event. There is growing recognition that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can result from many types of emotionally shocking experience including an accumulation of small, individually non-life-threatening events in which case the resultant PTSD is referred to as Complex PTSD.
DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
The diagnostic criteria for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are defined in DSM-IV as follows:
A. The person experiences a traumatic event in which both of the following were present:
1. the person experienced or witnessed or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others;
2. the person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror.
B. The traumatic event is persistently re-experienced in any of the following ways:
1. recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event, including images, thoughts or perceptions;
2. recurrent distressing dreams of the event;
3. acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (eg reliving the experience, illusions, hallucinations, and dissociative flashback episodes, including those on wakening or when intoxicated);
4. intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolise or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event;
5. physiological reactivity on exposure to internal or external cues that symbolise or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event.
C. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma) as indicated by at least three of:
1. efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings or conversations associated with the trauma;
2. efforts to avoid activities, places or people that arouse recollections of this trauma;
3. inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma;
4. markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities;
5. feeling of detachment or estrangement from others;
6. restricted range of affect (eg unable to have loving feelings);
7. sense of a foreshortened future (eg does not expect to have a career, marriage, children or a normal life span).
| | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 02/02/05 - Desperation? Are the terrorists getting desperate, or what?
NY POST
G.I. 'HOSTAGE' IS A REAL DOLL
By NILES LATHEM
WASHINGTON — Master terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, meet your new hostage — "Cody" the action figure.
In the wake of historic elections and top-level terror arrests, Zarqawi's minions yesterday claimed they had kidnapped an American soldier and posted his picture on a Web site.
"Our mujahedeen have managed to capture the American soldier, John Adam, after killing a number of his colleagues," said a Zarqawi-linked group called the Mujahedeen Squadrons on the terrorist group Ansar al-Islam's Web site.
A photo on the site appeared to show an African-American soldier sitting on a floor with a gun pointed at his head in front of a banner with the words "There is no God but God and Muhammad is his messenger" — a standard Muslim profession of faith.
But the tied-up GI turned out to be a nothing more than a toy soldier.
Dragon Models USA, a California-based toy company, recognized the supposed American "hostage" as being one of their popular action figures — called "Cody." It's sold on U.S. military bases in Kuwait.
"It is our doll. To me, it definitely looks like it is," said Dragon Models spokesman Liam Cusak.
"Everything the guy is wearing is exactly what comes with our figures," he added.
The "soldier" had no markings or insignia on his uniform and looked stiff and expressionless, sort of like, well, a doll.
U.S. military spokesmen initially took the posting seriously.
The Mujahedeen Squadrons has claimed responsibility for at least two other kidnappings. In this instance, they threatened to cut off the soldier's head in 72 hours if male and female prisoners were not released from U.S. prisons.
But military officials quickly realized that no soldiers were missing.
In the end, the taking of the toy soldier appeared to be an act of desperation by the terrorists — or just mischievous hackers.
The members-only, password-protected Ansar al-Islam site is the place where Zarqawi first posts his communiqués and where videos of his group's grisly beheadings first surfaced, according to terrorism expert Rita Katz, who studies Islamic extremist Web sites.
Meanwhile, Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawer said yesterday that it's too soon to start talking about the withdrawal of real American soldiers from Iraq, despite the success of the elections.
"It's only complete nonsense to ask troops to leave in this chaos and this vacuum of power," al-Yawer, a Sunni, told reporters.
He said he believes that by the end of the year — once more Iraqi forces are trained — there can be a reduction in U.S. and coalition troops.
http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/39295.htm
----------------
Better watch out. Someone might try to kidnap your Barbie and Ken dolls to use as hostages.
Pathetic.
Elliot paraclete answered on 02/02/05:Looks like there will be a new line in action figures, the Iraqi prisoner doll complete with detatchable head, and the Iraqi terrorist doll complete with scimitar. These should prove popular in Baghdad. | | Question/Answer | | Itsdb asked on 02/02/05 - Smoking ordinances Yesterday, our little West Texas city commission decided, based on a petition, to put a smoking ban ordinance up for vote in May. The ordinance would ban smoking in virtually all public places...restaurants, bars, offices, you name it, and 25' from entrances. Violation would cost you a $2000...yes, a $2000 fine.
I know smoking ordinances are all the rage now, but I have issues with them. I see both sides, non-smokers don't want to be 'victims' of second-hand smoke, smokers think it is taking away one of their freedoms to engage in a legal activity.
My contention is first, many, if not most restaurants in our city have already gone smoke-free. Most offices are smoke-free, as are all government buildings, hospitals, shopping malls, etc.
One supporter of the ordinance complained after opponents spoke, that basically non-smokers apparently have no rights. I contend that no, probably 85% of public places are already smoke-free, and non-smokers have the right to choose whether or not to patronize a restaurant that has a smoking section (and restaurants are basically the primary issue here). However, this ordinance would take away both the smoker's right to have ANY public place to smoke AND the property owner's right to determine what legal activities to allow on his property.
Whether or not one is a smoker is irrelevent, I fear what happens next. What is the next public ban on private property because someone is offended? Background music? Perfume? Televisions in sports bars? Cell phones? Crosses? Prayers? Bibles?
Are these bans even constitutional? Is it a problem the market will take care of? Is there a compromise available? Will this lead to further erosion of property rights? Your unbiased thoughts?
Steve paraclete answered on 02/02/05:I think it's a great idea to ban smoking in public places, particularly Restaurants. It is time to stop being subserviant to the tobacco industry. In fact the sooner, the tobacco industry is put out of business in the interests of public health the better. Other addictive substances are banned, why not tobacco? | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 02/01/05 - Iraq -
Hello peacniks:
If the result is positive in Iraq (and I hope it is), does that mean that we shouldn’t discuss the fact that we went there for reasons OTHER than to establish democracy? Is Bush excused? Does that mean he’ll do it again? Iran? Syria? N. Korea? Should he do it again?
Do you even still think we went there for the RIGHT reasons (Elliot does)? Please don’t argue that even the Dems thought there were WMD’s. Of course they did. So did I. Why did I think so? Because my government (who is supposed to KNOW) told me so. They were wrong. It does matter.
excon
paraclete answered on 02/01/05:Excon
Yes, it matters, it fact it should be unforgiveable that a nation went to war on incorrect intelligence. being "WRONG!" has cost many people their lives and imposed a great deal of hardship. Bush is not excused, and he will not be forgiven.
The "positive" result you speak of in Iraq is that a election has been held. It is not a victory for democracy since elections have been held there before. True democracy exists when the people are allowed to govern themselves in the manner they want, not that imposed by someoneelse.
Bush must not, I repeat NOT, be allowed to do it again. Whatever we might think of the regimes in Iran, Syria, North Korea, unless they actually attack someone, Bush has no right to interfere with them.
If the intelligence was bad in Iraq, what makes you think it is any better in Iran, Syria, North Korea. | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 01/27/05 - Finally! A Chain Letter For Men! This chain letter was started in hopes of bringing relief to
other tired and discouraged men. Unlike most chain letters,
this one doesn't cost anything!
Just send a copy of this letter to five of your male friends who
are discontented. Then bundle up your wife and/or girlfriend
and send her to the man whose name appears at the top of
the following list, and add your name to the bottom of the list.
When your turn comes, you will receive 2,625 women.
At the writing of this letter, a friend of mine had already
received 184 women, of whom four were worth keeping.
This chain also brings good luck. One man's pit bull died,
and the next day he received a Playboy playmate.
An unmarried Jewish man living with his widowed mother
was able to choose between a Hooter's waitress and a
Hollywood super model.
You can be lucky too, but DO NOT BREAK THE CHAIN AS
THIS WILL BRING YOU BAD LUCK! One man broke the
chain and got his wife back again.
Let's keep it going, men! Just add your name to the list below:
Bill Clinton
780 3rd Ave., New York, NY 10017
Billy Clinton
780 3rd Ave., New York, NY 10017
Billie Clinton
780 3rd Ave., New York, NY 10017
B. Clinton
780 3rd Ave., New York, NY 10017
William Jefferson Clinton
780 3rd Ave.,New York, NY 10017
W. Jefferson Clinton
780 3rd Ave.,New York, NY 10017
W. Jeff Clinton
780 3rd Ave.,New York, NY 10017
W. J. Clinton
780 3rd Ave., New York, NY 10017
W. Clinton
780 3rd Ave., New York, NY 10017
William J Clinton
780 3rd Ave., New York, NY 10017
Willy Clinton
780 3rd Ave., New York, NY 10017
Wilhelm Clinton
780 3rd Ave., New York, NY 10017
Willie Clinton
780 3rd Ave., New York, NY 10017
Will Clinton
780 3rd Ave., New York, NY 10017
Mr. Hillary Clinton
780 3rd Ave., New York, NY 10017
paraclete answered on 01/28/05:I just couldn't risk this one, I'm not good at chain letters and I might get my old wife back | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 01/25/05 - Iraqi Elections Looks like the Iraqi Elections are going to be a huge success! *Phew* Many of the people have gotten behind the idea of voting and having a say in their government. Actually, loving the idea. (Per polls)I hope that this potential success will prove America right for being pro active in going after the causes of Islamofascism.
What are your thoughts about the upcoming elections? paraclete answered on 01/26/05:How do you rate success? It must be based on a body count, becuase there could be nothing else obvious. What price these elections America just has to have at any cost. The outcome, whatever it might be, other than confirmation of the puppet government already set up proves nothing, not the righteousness of the American cause, nor the freedom of the Iraqi people. Freedom is a state of mind, not an election, the Iraqi are far from free, whatever your crusading president might tell you. | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 01/26/05 - Scandal Brewing in Bush Admin. There is a scandal brewing in the Bush Administration that will soil Bush badly. A second example of Bush's Secretary of Education in his first administration ordering money paid to media types for pushing his programs, ie No Child Left Behind and The Marriage Initiative(can't remember the actual title, sorry).
Today, it was revealed that a female media type was paid $21,000.00 for publicizing Bush'w Marriage Initiative in the media. Two weeks or so ago, a media- type man from Chicago was paid $248,000.00 or so for pushing Bush's o Child Left Behind initiative.
This buying the Media goes to the highest level of Government! Since when can the President of the United States *buy* what is put on the public airways *without disclosure*?? As if it is the opinion of the "supposedly neutral" media type????? paraclete answered on 01/26/05:Nothing is free in this world, chou, you should know that. Cash for comment is nothing new, it's just that you didn't know about it. | | Question/Answer | | kindj asked on 01/26/05 - Commentary from Europe Matthias Dapfner, Chief Executive of the huge German publisher
Axel Springer AG, has written a blistering attack in DIE WELT,
Germany's largest daily newspaper, against the timid reaction of Europe
in the face of the Islamic threat.
EUROPE - THY NAME IS COWARDICE
(Commentary by Mathias Dapfner CEO, Axel Springer, AG)
A few days ago Henry Broder wrote in Welt am Sonntag, "Europe -your family name is appeasement." It's a phrase you can't get out of your head because it's so terribly true.
Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives as England and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too long before they noticed that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to toothless
agreements.
Appeasement legitimized and stabilized Communism in the Soviet Union, then East Germany, then all the rest of Eastern Europe where for decades, inhuman, suppressive, murderous governments were glorified as
the ideologically correct alternative to all other possibilities.
Appeasement crippled Europe when genocide ran rampant in Kosovo, and even though we had absolute proof of ongoing mass-murder, we Europeans debated and debated and debated, and were still debating when finally the Americans had to come from halfway around the world, into Europe yet again, and do our work for us.
Rather than protecting democracy in the Middle East, European appeasement, camouflaged behind the fuzzy word "equidistance," now countenances suicide bombings in Israel by fundamentalist Palestinians.
Appeasement generates a mentality that allows Europe to ignore nearly 500,000 victims of Saddam's torture and murder machinery and, motivated by the self-righteousness of the peace-movement, has the gall
to issue bad grades to George Bush... Even as it is uncovered that the loudest critics of the American action in Iraq made illicit billions, no, TENS of
billions, in the corrupt U.N. Oil-for-Food program. And now we are faced with a particularly grotesque form of appeasement...
How is Germany reacting to the escalating violence by Islamic fundamentalists in Holland and elsewhere? By suggesting that we really should have a "Muslim
Holiday" in Germany.
I wish I were joking, but I am not. A substantial fraction of our (German) Government, and if the polls are to be believed, the German people, actually
believe that creating an Official State "Muslim Holiday" will somehow spare us from the wrath of the fanatical Islamists. One cannot help but recall
Britain's Neville Chamberlain waving the laughable treaty signed by Adolf Hitler, and declaring European "Peace in our time".
What else has to happen before the European public and its Political leadership get it? There is a sort of crusade underway, an especially perfidious crusade consisting of systematic attacks by fanatic Muslims, focused on civilians, directed against our free, open Western societies, and intent upon Western
Civilization's utter destruction.
It is a conflict that will most likely last longer than any of the great military conflicts of the last century - a conflict conducted by an enemy that cannot be tamed by "tolerance" and "accommodation" but is actually spurred on by such gestures, which have proven to be, and will always be taken by the Islamists for signs of weakness.
Only two recent American Presidents had the courage needed for anti-appeasement: Reagan and Bush.
His American critics may quibble over the details, but we Europeans know the truth.
We saw it first hand: Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War, freeing half of the German people from nearly 50 years of terror and virtual slavery. And Bush,
supported only by the Social Democrat Blair, acting on moral conviction, recognized the danger in the Islamic War against democracy. His place in history will
have to be evaluated after a number of years have passed. In the meantime, Europe sits back with charismatic self-confidence in the multicultural
corner, instead of defending liberal society's values and being an attractive center of power on the same playing field as the true great powers, America and China.
On the contrary - we Europeans present ourselves, in contrast to those "arrogant Americans", as the World Champions of "tolerance", which even (Germany's Interior Minister) Otto Schily justifiably criticizes. Why?
Because we're so moral?
I fear it's more because we're so materialistic,
so devoid of a moral compass.
For his policies, Bush risks the fall of the dollar, huge amounts of additional national debt, and a massive and persistent burden on the American
economy - because unlike almost all of Europe, Bush realizes what is at stake -literally everything.
While we criticize the "capitalistic robber barons" of America because they seem too sure of their priorities, we timidly defend our Social Welfare
systems.
Stay out of it! It could get expensive! We'd rather discuss reducing our 35-hour workweek or our dental coverage, or our 4 weeks of paid vacation... Or
listen to TV pastors preach about the need to "reach out to terrorists. To understand and forgive".
These days, Europe reminds me of an old woman who, with shaking hands, frantically hides her last pieces of jewelry when she notices a robber breaking into a neighbor's house.
Appeasement?
Europe, thy name is Cowardice.
paraclete answered on 01/26/05:Yes, he's right, they fear offending anyone these days, particularly those embedded in their populations | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 01/14/05 - Poverty Pimp Bill Cosby has taken up the cause of lack of positive values in the poor Black community. Culture of gangster-violence, non-achievenemt, rap-music and abuse of women....he talked of Jesus and taking up your cross and carrying it.
In addition, he mentioned the term "Poverty Pimp" which was a slap at Jesse Jackson who he claims lives off the victimhood of poor blacks.
Comments? paraclete answered on 01/19/05:Bill Crosby can call it anyway he likes and as he is part of the black community he is more likely to get it right | | Question/Answer | | VisionsInBlue asked on 01/15/05 - LOL!!!! How hysterical is this? Moore Gets No Love From Old High School
Sat Jan 15, 9:32 AM ET Entertainment - AP
DAVISON, Mich. - Oscar on the shelf or not, Michael Moore is not getting much respect at his old high school. Despite his fame and many honors, the filmmaker has been rejected all four times that he has been nominated for Davison High School's Hall of Fame.
"Would you want him as a role model? Would you want your son or daughter to be like him?" asked Don Hammond, a member of the Hall of Fame selection committee. "I haven't talked to anybody yet who's for him. The word to describe Michael Moore is embarrassing. He embarrasses everybody."
Ryan Eashoo disagrees. The 1997 Davison High graduate has spent 80 hours the last two weeks and $600 of his own money trying to get Moore elected.
"We've been blacklisted," Eashoo, 25, told the Detroit Free Press. "I'm a huge Michael Moore fan. He's a great producer, great filmmaker, always sticking up for minorities. He's kind of an underdog."
So far, Eashoo has 300 signed nominations of Moore. His goal is 2,000 by Feb. 1. The committee meets Feb. 11 to choose its inductees.
Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11" attacked President Bush's rationale for the war in Iraq and accused him and his administration of fostering fear for political gain. Moore spent the weeks before the election traveling across the country to urge Americans to vote Bush out of office.
His "Bowling for Columbine" won the Oscar for best documentary in 2003.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=529&ncid=529&e=2&u=/ap/20050115/ap_en_mo/people_michael_moore
Poor Mooron. Are they rejecting him because he never seems to shower? :( paraclete answered on 01/19/05:Moore does a great job. If he had a bigger budget he could do a better job. But his subjects provide him with such second rate material I like his The Corporation.
People who achieve national prominence should be honoured by their alma mater, there are so few heroes these days you have to take the good with the bad | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 01/16/05 - The War on Terror - Why we should be afraid!
Hello:
What kind of government seeks the power to lock up, forever, those suspected of being its enemies? What kind of government hides its prisoners from the world? What kind of government ships out its prisoners to other countries for torture?
Ashamedly, mine does.
The contemplation of secret lifetime prisons have increased my feelings that I am living in a rogue nation on the brink on totalitarianism.
The right of an accused person to know the charges against him/her and to defend themselves in a public trial is the bedrock of what we, in this country, call "freedom" From the Magna Carta (1215) to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) to the Bill of Rights (1791), people seeking freedom from tyranny have forbidden their governments to imprison anyone without just cause or without a trial.
I find it terribly frightening that Bush seems to have convinced a huge number of people that this important right can be ignored in the case of "terrorism suspects". If we allow the government to place itself above the law, then we truly open the door to the rule of terror. Because, if they can do it to them, they'll get around to you.
If we don't stop it, we will soon find ourselves afraid to speak out.
excon
paraclete answered on 01/19/05:You won't get an argument from me on this one excon | | Question/Answer | | tsunami asked on 01/16/05 - Does a President have the right to destroy America? No one voted on Election Day to destroy the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.But President Bush is now claiming a mandate to do exactly that.
Congressional leaders are pushing for a quick vote that would turn America'sgreatest sanctuary for Arctic wildlife into a vast, polluted oil field.
Even worse, they are planning to avoid public debate on this devastating measure by hiding it in a must-pass budget bill.
As responsible Americans can you please do what you can to stop this?
Please go to: http://www.savebiogems.org/arctic/takeaction.asp?ms=RR0501 right now and send a message telling your U.S. senators and representative to reject this sneak attack on the Arctic Refuge.
Thank you, good people.
paraclete answered on 01/19/05:Didn't you read the fine print, it was there somewhere. No use complaining now. | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 01/18/05 - An Alternative Inaugural Address This is both hilarious and containing a hint of truth.
From the January 24, 2005 issue of The Weekly Standard:
What if George W. Bush weren't a compassionate conservative . . .
by P.J. O'Rourke
01/24/2005, Volume 010, Issue 18
MY FELLOW AMERICANS, I had intended to reach out to all of you and bring a divided nation together. But I changed my mind. America isn't divided by political ethos or ethnic origin. America isn't divided by region or religion. America is divided by jerks. Who wants to bring a bunch of jerks together with the rest of us? Let them stew in Berkeley, Boston, and Ann Arbor.
The media say that I won the election on the strength of moral values. If the other fellow had become president, would the media have said that he won the election on the strength of immoral values? For once the media would have been right.
We are all sinners. But jerks revel in their sins. You can tell by their reaction to the Ten Commandments. Post those Ten Commandments in a courthouse or a statehouse, in a public school or a public park, and the jerks go crazy. Why is that? Christians believe in the Ten Commandments. So do Muslims. Jews, too, obviously. Show the Ten Commandments to Hindus, Buddhists, Confucians, or to people with just good will and common sense and nobody says, "Whoa! That's all wrong!"
But jerks take issue with every one of the Ten Commandments. Jerks are particularly offended by the first two Commandments. Of course people of faith, decent people, differ on interpretations of the first two Commandments. For example, we don't all agree about the meaning of "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image." However, we do all agree about "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them" when them is Freud, Marx, and Dan Rather.
"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." How many times, over the last few months, have we heard, "Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod, I can't believe George Bush won"?
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." Let's be fair about this. We did see a lot of white, non-Hispanic Democrats in churches in 2004. But they were all running for president. And the churches were inner-city black churches. I happen to know that there are churches in the white, non-Hispanic suburbs where these Democrats live. Apparently jerks can't find them.
"Honor thy father and thy mother." Are telling lies about a bankrupt Social Security system and trying to block its privatization reform ways to do this?
"Thou shalt not kill." Why, in the opinion of jerks, is it wrong to kill a baby but all right to kill a baby that's so little he hasn't been born yet? And why do the same jerks who favor abortion oppose the death penalty? We can imagine people so full of loving kindness that they can accept neither the abortionist nor the executioner. We can even imagine people so cold-hearted that they embrace them both. But it takes a real jerk to argue in favor of killing perfect innocents and letting Terry Nichols live.
"Thou shalt not commit adultery." The jerks have begun praising marriage lately. But only if the bride and groom each have a beard.
"Thou shalt not steal." In 2004 the United States government spent $2,318,800,000,000. Thus every American benefited from $7,919.37 worth of federal services. Let me ask the jerks something. Say you're average jerks, a "blended family" of four. Did you pay $31,677.48 in taxes last year? If you didn't, you took things from other Americans. What did you give in return?
"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." Especially not in return for vast wealth, abundant prizes, and lavish praise from fellow jerks. I'm talking to you, Michael Moore.
And then there is the Tenth Commandment. "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's." The Ten Commandments are God's basic rules about how we should live--a brief list of sacred obligations and solemn moral precepts. The first nine Commandments concern theological principles and social law. But then, right at the end, is "Don't envy your buddy's cow." How did that make the top ten? What's it doing there? Why would God, with just ten things to tell Moses, choose as one of those things jealousy about the starter mansion with in-ground pool next door?
Yet think how important the Tenth Commandment is to a community, to a nation, indeed to a presidential election. If you want a mule, if you want a pot roast, if you want a cleaning lady, don't be a jerk and whine about what the people across the street have--go get your own.
The Tenth Commandment sends a message to all the jerks who want redistribution of wealth, higher taxes, more government programs, more government regulation, more government, less free enterprise, and less freedom. And the message is clear and concise: Go to hell.
P.J. O'Rourke is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and author, most recently, of Peace Kills (Atlantic Monthly Press).
© Copyright 2005, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved. paraclete answered on 01/19/05:Can't see Bush using it, it's too long for his attention span | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/18/05 - Annual Neologism Contest The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. The winners are:
Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.
Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavored mouthwash.
Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.
Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist.
Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.
paraclete answered on 01/19/05:very good
pancreatitus a person who is very creative with pans | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 01/18/05 - Condileeza Rice before the Senate I have been watching the Senate hearings regarding approval for Condi being appointed Secretary of State.
What is with Barbara Boxer(D Calif)? She is making a very bad representation of herself. I'm wondering if there is a California "thing", that is, dumb or dumber. paraclete answered on 01/19/05:Rice is a dangerous person. as the good Senator said, she is loose with the truth, so now we have a axis of Tyranny, one has to wonder just how must rubbish she has fed Bush. | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 01/12/05 - Who uttered these words ?? "The world is governed by people far different from those imagined by the public."
paraclete answered on 01/12/05:Weird stuff this Roland
http://liberalslikechrist.org/about/illuminati.html | | Question/Answer | | ROLCAM asked on 01/12/05 - Who and When said these words ?? " Taxation without representation is tyranny." paraclete answered on 01/12/05:James Otis
US politician in American Revolution (1725 - 1783) | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 01/11/05 - Abbas: Peacemaker???
Hello all you fine people, (((((fine people)))):
One moment Abbas demands that Palestinian terrorists stop their attacks on Israel and the next he (literally) embraces them, calling them "heroes fighting for freedom." Also, he talks of both stopping the violence and of the "right of return” for over 4 million Palestinians to Israel, a well-known way of calling indirectly for the elimination of Israel.
What Gives?
Actually, there is no contradiction. By insisting on a "right of return," Abbas signals that he, like Yasir Arafat and most Palestinians, intends to undo the events of 1948; that he rejects the very legitimacy of a Jewish state and will strive for its elimination. He differs from Arafat, only in being able to imagine more than one way of achieving this goal.
excon
paraclete answered on 01/11/05:Abbas is walking down the same path Arafat walked becuase he has no choice. If he were to turn away from the long held Palistian views he would not long keep his office but would quickly be marginalised. But by saying he wants to abide by the 1966 borders he is saying he doesn't expect to return to 1948, but 1966 may not be acceptable to Israel. The issue of return is the issue of allowing those who reside in Jordan and elsewhere to return. This they cannot do at present. The issue of return is the issue of return to Israel, a very different issue indeed.
The road map is someoneelse's idea of how to resolve the crisis, It may, or may not, be the ultimate outcome. Israel is a soverign state and must not be dictated to, in the same way the Palistian people must not be dictated to. Israel holds the upper hand at teh moment, they occupy the territories. While that remains, resolution may not be possible | | Question/Answer | | sapphire630 asked on 01/11/05 - Don't know much about SS reform I keep hearing people oppose it because they are afraid their money would be lost in bad stock market investments (other than that I don't think they have any idea better of an idea of the reform than I do)
I am for it if it is done in a way that will work and guarantees to ensure the government can't mess it up? Like why can't the money be invested like the 401k's? Why can't they put limits on the changes they are allowed to make down the road (so they can't end up taking money away from what started as a good system)?
I heard that Chile or somewhere has personalized system where they get way more than the chump change we get when we retire. Why couldn't we use them as an example? paraclete answered on 01/11/05:If you are looking for an alternative I would suggest you examine the Australian system, but you do have to have a system where people are restricted from being sepeculative in their investment choices, because it is in speculation that the risks cannot be assessed by the individual and where much money is lost. The purpose of investing for the future is that the funds grow and are not eroded by foollishness. | | Question/Answer | | ETWolverine asked on 01/10/05 - Bush: Tsunami aid will be 'demand driven' More funds possible but not certain, he says after Powell briefing
The Associated Press
Updated: 3:09 p.m. ET Jan. 10, 2005
WASHINGTON - President Bush said Monday the United States “is committed today and we will be committed tomorrow” to tsunami victims in the Indian Ocean, but did not commit to any specific increase in U.S. aid to the region.
“We’ll see,” Bush said after receiving a report on the destruction from Secretary of State Colin Powell, just back from a tour of Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka. “The dollars are demand driven.”
Earlier, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the tsunami-ravaged nations will need much more help than the assistance already pledged by the rest of the world and that the United States “will be there throughout to help the people of the region recover.”
Bush did not promise that the U.S. commitment of $350 million in aid would rise. “It could,” he said, when asked.
What is needed, the president said, is to consult with other nations to “make sure the money that is available actually achieves a coordinated objective” before there can be any decision to give more.
“The key is to provide immediate relief, which we are doing,” he said. “Now we’re in the process of beginning to rehabilitate and reconstruct these societies.”
The “most intense,” long-term need is in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, which Powell said had seen unimaginable devastation that will take years to rebuild.
Powell, just back from a tour of Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka, said Sunday that the U.S. response to the disaster has been “quite good,” and that all the nations in the region have been thankful. He said people were not starving and food was reaching the region, “but there should be no illusion as to how long it’s going to take to rebuild these communities.”
(snip)
From http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6754820/
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Note the bolded sections above...
Is Bush making a not-so-veiled statement about UN control of the disaster recovery money? Or am I reading too much into this? paraclete answered on 01/10/05:I think you are reading too much into it. noone can yet say what will be required. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/10/05 - Terrorist caught planting a road side bomb. Check out the Reuters photo and the caption below it .
It reads :"A suspected insurgent asks residents for mercy after they caught him planting explosives under civilian vehicles, at a busy area in Baghdad, January 3, 2005. Insurgents killed 17 Iraqi police and National Guards on Monday in another bloody spree of ambushes, bombings and suicide attacks aimed at wrecking Iraq 's January 30 national election. "
HELLO !!! If he was planting a bomb under civilian autos he is a TERRORIST not an insurgent !!!
Note the look on his face ;begging for mercy .
As Iraqi blogger Fayrous says :"Don't underestimate the Iraqi people. Iraqis will be the ones driving those terrorists out of their country."
paraclete answered on 01/10/05::"Don't underestimate the Iraqi people. Iraqis will be the ones driving those terrorists out of their country."
yeh right! They will drive them out right after the last american leaves Iraq.
| | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 01/08/05 - Iraq Elections Yesterday on cable news, I saw a story that in some parts of Iraq it is too dangerous to have elections.
We have been in Iraq for, how long now, and now we have to face the fact that the War was a terrible idea for all the reasons we see on the news every day. But, mostly because the leaders(Neo-Cons) engaged in "wishful thinking" on what would happen in an occupied Iraq.
Do you think that we will be there another twenty years, or so? paraclete answered on 01/09/05:Iraq is another Vietnam, or America's Afganistan. The Russians learned the hard war it's not worth being embroiled in a Muslim war. Great pity the US didn't learn from them. I expect ego would not allow them to think they couldn't get a better result, but there is an echo here, the Afganistan war brought regime change in Russia, perhaps the Iraq war will bring regime change in the US. | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 01/08/05 - Newt Gingrich Newt Gingrich is planning a run for the Presidency as a Republican in 2008. He sure is one intelligent guy, I'll say that for him.
Will he make a good candidate? paraclete answered on 01/09/05:surely couldn't do worse than George W. | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 01/06/05 - Kofi Demands Today Kofi Annan demanded that all the countries who coillected money for the victims of the tsunami disaster in South East Asia turn that money over to the United Nations.
Comments? paraclete answered on 01/07/05:No kidding, Hitler is back in town is he? Mr Annan has two chances of enforcing his demand and getting his grimmy little hands on the moolah, buckleys and none. Only $20 million of the 1 Billion collected for Bam earhquake victims twleve months age actually has been distributed to them, so the UN isn't invited to this party.
Anticipating there might be problems, Australia, the largest national donor, has entered into a bilateral agreement with Indonesia for distribution of it's aid package, and the monies collected within it's borders, $120 Million so far, has gone directly to accredited charitiable institutions.
Somehow I don't see a role for the UN, do you? | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 01/04/05 - Asian Press reporting al-Zarqwai captured http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=1619544&PageNum=0
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-01/04/content_405831.htm
http://www.idao.org/2005/01/stop-press-abu-musab-al-zarqawi.xml
http://www.inform.kz/txt/showarticle.php?lang=eng&id=106208
Hope this is true ,but he has been reported captured before . This would be particularly sweet in light of bin Laden's recent endorsement of Zarqwai. I'm sure there are plenty in Iraq and the International Community who would like to administer equal justice to this scum.
paraclete answered on 01/05/05:Not picking up a confirmation of that one Tom | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 01/04/05 - Muslims Condemn Saudi Arabia, Kuwait Saudi Arabia and oil Emarits(sp)were soundly condemned by Muslims because they are TOO STINGY in giving to fellow Muslims in Indonesia who are suffering greatly. Saudi Arabia originally pledged only $10 mil in aid. They have now upped their contribution to a "whopping" $30 mil. I addition, they are going to hold a "telethon" for the victims. Kuwait who has had $9 BIL in oil prices this year also gave a paultry amount.
Setting aside our *duty* as a rich country to give extensive humitarian aide, we are going to have a huge public relations bonanza. Go figure. paraclete answered on 01/05/05:Just shows how the Muslims don't take the requirement to give alms seriously. It's not like they would be giving to help infidels.
Well you know what the say, the rich get richer and the poor just float away | | Question/Answer | | sapphire630 asked on 01/05/05 - Bush slow? Who beat Bush to send aid to the Tsunami victims?
Where was Koffi? Kerry? I think scary terry kerry still hasn't found her checkbook since she lost it before the Pittsburgh flood from Ivan. Is she going to make an appearance there to and say her famous 'I wish there were something I could do' and leave?
I bet the answers are as good as 9/11 (when Bush was accused of spending 7 minutes in the grade school) Clinton's excuse was he was in a paralized shock for 45 minutes.
paraclete answered on 01/05/05:Yes George is pretty slow. I see That George, who is a millionaire, could only find $13,000 to spare for the Tsumani victims. As far as any other wealthy person having some spare change these days, it seems largesse is on the decrease. | | Question/Answer | | Yiddishkeit asked on 12/21/04 - The Sunni's claim responsibility for the latest... In todays news...the lives of another 22 soldiers was taken when a mess hall tent was hit near Mosul. This is becoming a common tactic and it's an easy target. My brother's life would had been jeopardy when this very same thing happened in his part of Iraq (his base camp) about a month ago, except that he was fortunate enough to had been given a temporary assignment and dodged that direct hit.
My concern is that apparently no amount of perimeter securing is enough with multiple insurgent culprits pouring in from various sources. I would appreciate the boards views on how we can adjust to accomplish a finality of this ongoing war in Iraq.
Bobby paraclete answered on 12/24/04:There is an answer to security, don't let any locals in, import your contractors, if you can get them, and keep the locals out.
You could take a leaf out of the Israeli book and build some high walls to keep them out | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 12/23/04 - Bowling for Palestine Just when you think you have heard every possible absurdity, there comes on the news a story that Yasser Arafat invested one and one-half million dollars in a NYC bowling alley.
All I want for Christmas is some sort of leader for the Palestinean people.
Please God!
Choux paraclete answered on 12/24/04:This was just a small investment, the real scandal will be when the repossitory of the rest of the funds Arafat stole from his people is found. I am willing to predict it will be found in some very embarrassing places. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 12/24/04 - Same old ,same old The new leader of the ruling Fatah movement said the Palestinians want to replace Israel with a state of their own.
Fatah chief Farouk Khaddoumi said the Palestinian strategy toward Israel was two-fold. In the first stage, he said, the Palestinians would accept a Palestinian state alongside Israel. In the second stage, the Palestinians would seek to eliminate the Jewish state.
"At this stage there will be two states," Khaddoumi told Iran's Al Aram television last week. "Many years from now, there will be only one."
Where did we hear that before ?
paraclete answered on 12/24/04:You're right, it's also variation of the one world under Islam theme. We can understand that the Palistinians feel dispossessed, but it's time for this generation to move on from the past. The world, in the form of the UN, decided there would be a Jewish State and so the palistinians should accept the umpires decision and get on with life, otherwise their lives will forever be filled with carnage.
The Palistinians should veiw the establishment of a Palistinian State as a great victory since they will have gained not lost in the establishment of this state, they will have been rewarded for the mayhem they have caused. They already had a Palistinian state in the form of Jordan but after the Jewish occupation of the West Bank they have not been content with that. Surely the simple answer is for Israel to withdraw and give the West Bank back to Jordan, then the Palistinians can argue as much as they like among themselves. | | Question/Answer | | tomder55 asked on 12/07/04 - DO YOU KNOW THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE FINGER?
Well, now...here's something I never knew before, and now that I know it, I'll send it along to you.
Giving the Finger
Before the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, the French,
anticipating victory over the English, proposed to cut off the middle finger of all captured English soldiers. Without the middle finger it would be
impossible to draw the renowned English longbow and therefore they would be incapable of fighting in the future.
This famous weapon was made of the native English Yew tree, and the act of drawing the longbow was known as "plucking the yew" (or "pluck yew").
Much to the bewilderment of the French, the English won a major upset and began mocking the French by waving their middle fingers at the
defeated French, saying, "See, we can still pluck yew! "PLUCK YEW!"
Since 'pluck yew' is rather difficult to say, the difficult consonant
cluster at the beginning has gradually changed to a labiodentals fricative "F", and thus the words often used in conjunction with the
one-finger-salute!
It is also because of the pheasant feathers on the arrows used with the longbow that the symbolic gesture is known as "giving the bird."
And yew thought yew knew everything?
paraclete answered on 12/07/04:yew yew yew | | Question/Answer | | excon asked on 12/07/04 - Question? I don't need no stinkin question! H
ello political gurus:
In my most recent political incarnation, I adopted the economic viewpoint espoused by the likes of Milton Friedman, of the University of Chicago. That philosophy, in general, said that business would flourish in an atmosphere of non regulation. As a businessman, I saw most regulation as having nothing to with promoting the goals the legislation, but as a means of employment for the unqualified.
Today, I see that if business is left unbridled, they will rip us off. They (or their lobbyist) write much of the legislation that passes. They have a very friendly congress and president. Insurance companies, the pharmaceutical manufactures and the bankers (credit card issuers) are the worst thieves around. And, I know something about thievery.
excon
P.S. Oh, no question. I’m just angry as hell.
paraclete answered on 12/07/04:yes but isn't that what politics is about, making sure you are more equal than others | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 12/05/04 - Welcome Potential New Members I'd like to welcome some potential new Politics Board members Aton and clete; hopefully, they will feel at ease and make posts and answers as soon as possible. Welcome! paraclete answered on 12/05/04:Chou I have dropped in to have a look but you really need to broaden the material a little. I might let you have a look in on a small problem and see how constructive you are. | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 12/03/04 - "The Plot Against America" is the new book by Philip Roth. I'm about to start it, and I was wondering if anyone would like to be in a sorta "book club" so we could have discussion of the book on the Politics Forum??
It is "what if" history. The premise is that Charles Lindberg wins the 1940 Presidential election. (He was a Nazi supporter)
Anyone interested? paraclete answered on 12/05/04:Great shame he didn't | | Question/Answer | | powderpuff asked on 12/05/04 - What would an equal world standard of living look like If the world's wealth was evenly distributed, because there was equal opportunity for work everywhere, with equal pay everywhere, and the people of the world took equal opportunity and gave equal effort at their earning power, how poor would we all be? What would the average standard of living be like? paraclete answered on 12/05/04:You just don't get it do you. It's been done already in a test environment and it failed miserably.
Both Russia and China tried the grand experiment, to create the working class utopia.
What has happened? they both turned back to market based economies after considerable blood letting and persecution of free speech, religion and all things capitalist. | | Question/Answer | | Choux asked on 11/09/04 - Day 600-War in Iraq-15,567 DEAD Today is November 9, 2004, the assault on Fallujah is a couple of days old. Here are some statistics collected since March 19, 2003, the day Bush declared War on Iraq::::
Killed USA 1,137-----UK 74------OTHER 72
WOUNDED USA 4,438
WOUNDED RTD USA 3,849 (Returned To Duty)
IRAQI CITIZENS KILLED MINIMUM 14,284
MAX 16,419
CONSERVATIVE BODY COUNT EFF 11-04
----15,567 men and women-----
I got these statistics from searching the web with the following and viewing the first or first three sites. ::Iraqi citizens killed::::and casualities in Iraq war.
paraclete answered on 11/10/04:That estimate on the Iraqi bodycount might be off an an order of magniture. A recent statistical study suggested as many as 100,000 dead as a result of this illegal war. |
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