I disagree for the most part because the appearance of a rocket crate is a guaranteed ticket to the appearance of something that requires rockets to kill. There's no suspense at all and no chance of ever having to solve a puzzle by not blowing the living crap out of the gunships or whatever.
I mean seriously, when you're climbing over the nerve-wracking bridge support structures and you keep passing by "Rockets-r-Us" stores you pretty much know what's coming on the way back.
The only place it even makes remote sense is in the Nova Prospekt courtyard scene where it's a bit of necessary game balance.
Worse after you've whacked one or two gunships, the whole thing becomes pointlessly repetitive. Whoo-hoo another gunship, guess I'd better go get the rocket crate.
*** SPOILERS **** . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yup, my brother-in-law had the same thing happen to him as well. He also found that you can't climb the ladder in the elevator shaft up to Ravensholm unless you blow the lock on the security grate. (i.e. stacking boxes to get over the grate doesn't work.)
"This gives you enough clearance to jump over, but you can't! There's an invisible wall! The reason for this is that that part of the map is to be explored later, and of course, there is only 1 way in."
I saw that and thought about stacking to jump over but I didn't have the patience for it just then. Glad to know I didn't waste my time.
Of course I did later spend about 45 minutes trying to get above the railway track after the mines so that I could avoid what was an obvious kill zone. As ususal after lots of patient stacking and jumping...blam!...invisible wall.
"What makes HL2's design so interesting is the fact that while many of the puzzles and levels appear to allow the player a lot of choice, the game is actually *highly* linear in reality. There were a number of situations where I thought I'd found or thought up an alternate solution to a puzzle only to discover that the level was designed in such a way that only the "intended" solution would work."
That's completely true. My brother-in-law called me up last night stuck on a ramp jumping puzzle that I'd breezed through. After we'd played around with his problem for a while we discovered that he'd managed to jump a wall that he wasn't "supposed" to and as a result he didn't have to blow up an entrance that I had to blow up. As a result his ramp jump would fail every time. After I clued him into the entrance he had to blow open he could make the same jump with no problems.
Even creepier was crawling back in a water filled corner of a sewer/canal, pushing a floating black and red thing out of the way and then realizing after I've "touched" it (and physically recoiling) it's the charred remains of a human body!
This is the kind of 'leaning in your chair to look around the virtual corner' immersion that made HL1 so good. I can't wait to put the kids to bed tonight. (Brew a pot of coffee honey!)
Define mass market. If by mass market you mean: "Bunch of computer savvy people who don't have problems installing software on their own computers and then leaving the damn power-gobbling heat generating noisy crash prone (Oh wait you use mass-market Linux right?) PC's on for 24 hours a day" then I can see your point.
If by mass market you mean the rest of the populace that can't be bothered to buy AV software let alone keep it up do date and just want to pick up a phone and use it without thinking too much about it, then I think you're a bit off the mark.
Skype is a very neat program I'm sure and I'm positive there are lots of people who are getting a lot of benefit from using it. I seriously doubt however that you could use the term 'mass market' to describe those people.
VoIP (IP Telephony really) is going to succeed not by some program you install on your computer and then manage to hack into your cordless phone system. It'll be the Vonage's, Packet8's, and your local cable monopolies who end up on top of this pile.
2. It would be more instructive to compare C02 emissions versus some measure of productivity or output as opposed to population. As an example of what I'm driving at if the US produces 2x as much C02 emissions as Russia how does that compare to the productive output of the respective countries' manufacturing industries? My guess is that although we may have only 3% of the population our C02 emissions measured as a cost of output is in-line or better than the rest of the worlds'; i.e. we produce more products for less pollution. Of course this measure would disregard non-manufacturing sources of C02, but I don't know how prominently they figure into the 36%.
3. Don't confuse budget deficit with trade deficit. The budget deficit means that the government is spending more than it takes in in taxes and other revenues. The trade deficit is a country-by-country measure of the balance of trade. Your conclusion may still be correct (I haven't followed the link to go check) but the terminology at least is suspect.
"2) The tremendous political engine of the evangelical Christian population in the midwest."
Yes, there's a lot of crying about this now being the cause of the loss of the election, but it totally ignores the very successful (but not successful enough) Democratic efforts to get out the vote. There was a recent article in the WSJ (subscr. req'd so I won't bother linking) talking about how well the Democrats did at meeting their goals to turn out voters especially in Ohio. In most cases the Democrats met or exceeded their goals for increasing voter turn out in their favor. Unfortunately, the Republicans did a better job this time around in getting their base out.
The second problem with this is that it's not a midwest phenemenon. If you look at the county-by-county results virtually the entire nation including almost all of the "blue" states turned out and elected Bush. The "blue" areas are really confined to primarily the coastal cities.
So you might be more accurate to cast this as a "big coastal city" vs the rest of the US argument, but to attribute this loss to just the midwest is inaccurate.
Also, I'm fairly tired of hearing that only Republicans are Christian. Since when did the Democrats become all atheist? I happen to get a local Catholic newspaper and their own internal polls showed Catholics split down the middle Democrat and Republican.
Just in case you're actually as ignorant as you sound, ask yourself which of those two groups were carrying weapons? Perhaps if you could find an intra-uteran automatic weapon and get a million or so unborn children to join a shooting match against the US I'd be more open to your lame attempt at making those two examples equivalent.
Turkey has long opposed the creation of a seperate Kurdish state, although it has recently agreed to a more autonomous Kurd rule as _a part of a unified Iraq_.
You know, I agree with you on most points, but continually find myself frustrated by the we-need-a-coalition of countries argument.
Yes, let's set Poland aside for the moment, but they're not the only country that's helping us out over there, not by a long shot.
So the question becomes what multi-lateral coalition is acceptable? Is it ok if France and Germany join? What if only one of them does? Would North Korea be welcome?
I think the real point is that all this bulls*** about multi-lateral coalitions is a big red herring. I believe that the fact is NO coalition would be sufficient to convert the anti-war crowd on this point and it's simply seizing on France, Germany's, and the UN's discontent to try to lend some legitimacy to the argument.
(Ok, I know I'm not supposed to feed the AC's but this one's so cute and fuzzy!)
Yes, I'll agree, NOW we know that the original premise for the war was incorrect. The question is was Bush lying or just dumb? On the balance I think that the evidence points to the latter. I believe "W" really did think that the evidence pointed to a credible threat to the US. And yes, Bush is responsible for this.
However we got there, we are there now and we need to follow through on what we started. Overall I think we've done a good thing by liberating Iraq and I'd wager that most _Iraqis_ feel the same way (Sadam's cronies excepted.) The media like to make it sound like there's a popular Iraqi uprising against the US "occupiers" and calling the combants insurgents. They're not insurgents beyond the fact that they're technically fighting against the government (ours). Really they're terrorists and you don't need to look any further than the hostages they're selecting to know that. The hostages are being taken not only from the supposeed evil US, but also from people who've been friendly to Iraq (like the woman they've got now). These so-called insurgents don't care about Iraq at all.
Anyway, to your point, did we get into Iraq by mistake? Probably. Do I disapprove that we're there? No, not really. Personally I think we should have finished the job the first time around. I also believe that the overall strategy of taking the war to the terrorists and the countries we believe are aiding or abetting them is the correct strategy.
Kerry, on the other hand, doesn't really believe in the terrorist threat and even if he did he'd sit back and take a defensive stance. I don't believe such a posture is going to increase the safety of the US and I do believe it will encourage other despots and terrorists around the world to continue their attacks against the US. (Oh and the fact that Kerry himself has admitted to being a war criminal eliminates any moral authority he's supposed to have on conducting a war.)
You said: "I don't particularly mind the US playing world police as long as you obey some kind of ruleset and there are some checks and balances that prevent you from just raiding anyone you feel like."
Playing world police necessarily implies that Americans are going to be dying overseas for your police actions. What you're suggesting is that some extra-national body gets to set or at least approve/have veto power over those actions. Hence my comment.
And we do have a checks and balances system; it's called Congress. They authorized the war.
You also said: "...UNSEC in charge of allowing forceful invasions of sovereign nations. It's to keep the Chinese out of Taiwan. It's to keep the Germans out of Poland and the Russians out of Latvia. And it's to keep the Iraqis out of Kuwait."
Now, first off, it's not the UN that's keeping China out of Taiwan, it's the fact that he US sends a carrier battle group for a pleasure cruise over there every time China gets up on the wrong side of the bed. I don't know about the Russians and Latvia, but I don't recall Germany making any noises about annexing Poland recently. Oh, and the UN didn't really keep Iraq out of Kuwait did it? No, that would be largely the US who had to go clean up that mess.
And when the UN finally gets around to admitting they can't ignore the genocide in Dafur, guess who'll be called out to fix the problem? Yup that'll be US money and US blood on the ground over there.
You also said: "Is it strange that we want to live in stability and peace instead of living in fear, knowing there's a madman in the White House with his finger on the big red button?"
I find this comment particularly funny in the light of history. Why? Perhaps you don't remember (or maybe you weren't old enough) but this is EXACTLY the criticism that was leveled against Reagan when he confronted the USSR and brought about the end of the Cold War. Reagan was right then and I think that history will vindicate Bush's doctrine as well.
I'm sorry to say, that Germany and France have both already said that even if Kerry is elected, they're not going into Iraq.
From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6118472/
"...a top official of Germany's ruling Social Democratic Party quoted in Tuesday's edition of the Financial Times: "I cannot imagine that there will be any change in our decision not to send troops (to Iraq), whoever becomes president (of the United States).""
Well actually that's a bit untrue. Take the first sentence for example:
"Even after the final report of Charles Duelfer to Congress saying that Iraq did not have a significant WMD program, 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%)."
They're comparing apples to oranges. The report concluded that Iraq didn't have "_a significant WMD program_" but the question asked if "_Iraq had actual WMD_." Those are two completely different things.
You can argue about what constitutes a "significant WMD program" but WMD's have been discovered in Iraq. (Failed Sarin gas attack on a military convey back in May 2004 is one example.)
So the 47% of Bush voters believe correctly, there are proven incidences of WMDs in Iraq and 25% of them are presumably wrong depending again on your definition of "significant."
" UN needs to put together a real coalition soon to free you from your brain-washing overlords in D.C. "
Hah! And who would the UN have fight that war? The UN is corrupt sham of an organization that continues to exist only because it's been able to call on the US military to enforce its goals. Without the US military the UN is less than nothing.
Personally I think it's high time we end the charade that the UN has any authority, moral or otherwise, and simply disband it.
You're fooling yourself if you think Kerry is a hawk. Look at his post-Vietnam career; look at his Senate voting record. He only turned hawk long enough to defeat Dean in the primaries before slipping back into about as Dove-ish a Democrat as it's possible to be.
Kerry isn't advocating an immediate withdrawal from Iraq for two reasons:
1) He knows that he'll never get elected if he advocates such a position (he'll lose the moderate voters; he's got to win some of the states in the middle of the country) and
2) He knows that leaving Iraq now is an invitation for disaster and not just in the Middle East. (Korea is watching; El Queso is watching.)
The sad fact is that every plan Kerry's put forward so far is EXACTLY the plan that's already being executed. The only difference Kerry seems to be offering is that he can magically "do it better."
Worse, Kerry has had 19 months now and lots of additional evidence to decide if and how he would have gone to war with Iraq. He still can't make up his mind on either subject even with the added time and information. It's pretty darn easy to be a Monday morning quarterback and Kerry still can't offer a plan for Iraq that's substantially different from what's already being done.
Or could it be that supporters of President Bush endorse a foreign policy of premptive use of force against an irregular and non-national threat to the country's security?
There's a lot of talk about Bush's foreign policy but very little of it gets to the core issue: Bush believes in a foreign policy that is, simplistically, shoot first and ask questions later.
If you can understand that about Bush's core policy, then actions like the Iraq war are more explainable. Confronted with a rogue nation, conflicting and unclear intelligence, and a potential source of support for direct or indirect threats to the US, what does the Bush doctrine say? Shoot first ask questions later. If we're not sure, then apply force just in case.
It's certainly arguable whether that doctrine is really any more successful against an irregular threat like El Queso's brand of international terrorism. It's also anathama to the Democratic party in general who've been largely skitish about any armed conflict where Americans might come home in body bags.
Couple that with Kerry's apparent willingness to make US national security decisions dependant on provably corrupt organizations like the UN and support for a second Bush term doesn't have to originate with Bible-thumpers and corporate execs.
Quite simply there's a not-unfounded fear that Democrats in general, and John Kerry in particular, are unable to come to grips with the reality of a post-9/11 world.
Well if per capita is how we're going to measure it then pollution reduction is going to get a lot more popular in the US! Just think all we have to to is bump the population up to bring our per capita numbers down!
Just think: "Save the environment, have sex TODAY!"
I agree whole-heartedly on the appeal to non-hardcore gamers. My wife, who usually rolls her eyes at this sort of stuff, is a a newly converted hard core addict, as is the rest of my family. Last Christmas I think at least 3-4 new sets of the game were exchanged. Even my Mom puts down the grand-kids when we break the board out.
This is a very very fun game.
I'm not so hot on the Knights and Barbarians expansion as I feel it makes the game tedious (in a bad way), but the base set has plenty of replay value and this is truly a game where it's not over until it's over. I've seen some pretty amazing come-backs from players that everyone else had written off.
Facts facts facts...please check them once in a while.
" they can reisntate the draft like the want to,"
There is no movement by Bush to reinstate the draft. I assume you're referring to that ridiculous email that's making the rounds scaring people into believing that a re-elected Bush is planning on reinstating the draft. Here's a few points that will help:
1) Stop believing everything that shows up in your inbox. You'll be a lot less stressed and you'll save a lot on male performance enhancement products.
2) The Bills (HR 163 and S. 89) were introduced by, are you sitting down, DEMOCRATS!
o Rep Rangel, Charles B. [NY-15] (introduced 1/7/2003)
o Sen Hollings, Ernest F. [SC] (introduced 1/7/2003) (Yes, that Fritz Hollings.)
3) A quick visit to the Selective Service website confirms:
o Notwithstanding recent stories in the news media and on the Internet, Selective Service is not getting ready to conduct a draft for the U.S. Armed Forces -- either with a special skills or regular draft.
4) To help you in your pursuit of #1 above, try the following links:
o S. 89: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:SN000 89:|/bss/d108query.html|
o H.R. 163: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:HR001 63:|/bss/d108query.html|
o Selective Service: http://www.sss.gov/
5) The Bush administration is reportedly (Google for it) against both bills, although I can't substantiate that with anything on the White House website.
Slashdot Mirror
I disagree for the most part because the appearance of a rocket crate is a guaranteed ticket to the appearance of something that requires rockets to kill. There's no suspense at all and no chance of ever having to solve a puzzle by not blowing the living crap out of the gunships or whatever.
I mean seriously, when you're climbing over the nerve-wracking bridge support structures and you keep passing by "Rockets-r-Us" stores you pretty much know what's coming on the way back.
The only place it even makes remote sense is in the Nova Prospekt courtyard scene where it's a bit of necessary game balance.
Worse after you've whacked one or two gunships, the whole thing becomes pointlessly repetitive. Whoo-hoo another gunship, guess I'd better go get the rocket crate.
*** SPOILERS ****
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Yup, my brother-in-law had the same thing happen to him as well. He also found that you can't climb the ladder in the elevator shaft up to Ravensholm unless you blow the lock on the security grate. (i.e. stacking boxes to get over the grate doesn't work.)
"This gives you enough clearance to jump over, but you can't! There's an invisible wall! The reason for this is that that part of the map is to be explored later, and of course, there is only 1 way in."
I saw that and thought about stacking to jump over but I didn't have the patience for it just then. Glad to know I didn't waste my time.
Of course I did later spend about 45 minutes trying to get above the railway track after the mines so that I could avoid what was an obvious kill zone. As ususal after lots of patient stacking and jumping...blam!...invisible wall.
"What makes HL2's design so interesting is the fact that while many of the puzzles and levels appear to allow the player a lot of choice, the game is actually *highly* linear in reality. There were a number of situations where I thought I'd found or thought up an alternate solution to a puzzle only to discover that the level was designed in such a way that only the "intended" solution would work."
That's completely true. My brother-in-law called me up last night stuck on a ramp jumping puzzle that I'd breezed through. After we'd played around with his problem for a while we discovered that he'd managed to jump a wall that he wasn't "supposed" to and as a result he didn't have to blow up an entrance that I had to blow up. As a result his ramp jump would fail every time. After I clued him into the entrance he had to blow open he could make the same jump with no problems.
Even creepier was crawling back in a water filled corner of a sewer/canal, pushing a floating black and red thing out of the way and then realizing after I've "touched" it (and physically recoiling) it's the charred remains of a human body!
This is the kind of 'leaning in your chair to look around the virtual corner' immersion that made HL1 so good. I can't wait to put the kids to bed tonight. (Brew a pot of coffee honey!)
Define mass market. If by mass market you mean: "Bunch of computer savvy people who don't have problems installing software on their own computers and then leaving the damn power-gobbling heat generating noisy crash prone (Oh wait you use mass-market Linux right?) PC's on for 24 hours a day" then I can see your point.
If by mass market you mean the rest of the populace that can't be bothered to buy AV software let alone keep it up do date and just want to pick up a phone and use it without thinking too much about it, then I think you're a bit off the mark.
Skype is a very neat program I'm sure and I'm positive there are lots of people who are getting a lot of benefit from using it. I seriously doubt however that you could use the term 'mass market' to describe those people.
VoIP (IP Telephony really) is going to succeed not by some program you install on your computer and then manage to hack into your cordless phone system. It'll be the Vonage's, Packet8's, and your local cable monopolies who end up on top of this pile.
It's not just about the business apps; they're only the customer facing aspect of supporting an internal PC setup. You also need centrally managed:
1) Asset control
2) Software package and patch deployment
3) Anti-virus/spyware
4) Firewall
5) Backup and restore
There's a lot of infrastructure setup cost right there whether or not enterprise ready solutions exist in the Linux space for those 5 things.
Baking a cake for 4 people is one thing, making it for 15,000 is quite another.
Jared
In response to some of your points:
2. It would be more instructive to compare C02 emissions versus some measure of productivity or output as opposed to population. As an example of what I'm driving at if the US produces 2x as much C02 emissions as Russia how does that compare to the productive output of the respective countries' manufacturing industries? My guess is that although we may have only 3% of the population our C02 emissions measured as a cost of output is in-line or better than the rest of the worlds'; i.e. we produce more products for less pollution. Of course this measure would disregard non-manufacturing sources of C02, but I don't know how prominently they figure into the 36%.
3. Don't confuse budget deficit with trade deficit. The budget deficit means that the government is spending more than it takes in in taxes and other revenues. The trade deficit is a country-by-country measure of the balance of trade. Your conclusion may still be correct (I haven't followed the link to go check) but the terminology at least is suspect.
"2) The tremendous political engine of the evangelical Christian population in the midwest."
Yes, there's a lot of crying about this now being the cause of the loss of the election, but it totally ignores the very successful (but not successful enough) Democratic efforts to get out the vote. There was a recent article in the WSJ (subscr. req'd so I won't bother linking) talking about how well the Democrats did at meeting their goals to turn out voters especially in Ohio. In most cases the Democrats met or exceeded their goals for increasing voter turn out in their favor. Unfortunately, the Republicans did a better job this time around in getting their base out.
The second problem with this is that it's not a midwest phenemenon. If you look at the county-by-county results virtually the entire nation including almost all of the "blue" states turned out and elected Bush. The "blue" areas are really confined to primarily the coastal cities.
So you might be more accurate to cast this as a "big coastal city" vs the rest of the US argument, but to attribute this loss to just the midwest is inaccurate.
Also, I'm fairly tired of hearing that only Republicans are Christian. Since when did the Democrats become all atheist? I happen to get a local Catholic newspaper and their own internal polls showed Catholics split down the middle Democrat and Republican.
Wish I had some mod points; what a troll.
Just in case you're actually as ignorant as you sound, ask yourself which of those two groups were carrying weapons? Perhaps if you could find an intra-uteran automatic weapon and get a million or so unborn children to join a shooting match against the US I'd be more open to your lame attempt at making those two examples equivalent.
Turkey has long opposed the creation of a seperate Kurdish state, although it has recently agreed to a more autonomous Kurd rule as _a part of a unified Iraq_.
% 20 News%20archives/June/20n/Turkey%20accepts%20Iraqi% 20Kurd%20selfrule%20%20Kurdish%20leader.htm
http://www.aljazeerah.info/News%20archives/2004
You know, I agree with you on most points, but continually find myself frustrated by the we-need-a-coalition of countries argument.
Yes, let's set Poland aside for the moment, but they're not the only country that's helping us out over there, not by a long shot.
So the question becomes what multi-lateral coalition is acceptable? Is it ok if France and Germany join? What if only one of them does? Would North Korea be welcome?
I think the real point is that all this bulls*** about multi-lateral coalitions is a big red herring. I believe that the fact is NO coalition would be sufficient to convert the anti-war crowd on this point and it's simply seizing on France, Germany's, and the UN's discontent to try to lend some legitimacy to the argument.
(Ok, I know I'm not supposed to feed the AC's but this one's so cute and fuzzy!)
Yes, I'll agree, NOW we know that the original premise for the war was incorrect. The question is was Bush lying or just dumb? On the balance I think that the evidence points to the latter. I believe "W" really did think that the evidence pointed to a credible threat to the US. And yes, Bush is responsible for this.
However we got there, we are there now and we need to follow through on what we started. Overall I think we've done a good thing by liberating Iraq and I'd wager that most _Iraqis_ feel the same way (Sadam's cronies excepted.) The media like to make it sound like there's a popular Iraqi uprising against the US "occupiers" and calling the combants insurgents. They're not insurgents beyond the fact that they're technically fighting against the government (ours). Really they're terrorists and you don't need to look any further than the hostages they're selecting to know that. The hostages are being taken not only from the supposeed evil US, but also from people who've been friendly to Iraq (like the woman they've got now). These so-called insurgents don't care about Iraq at all.
Anyway, to your point, did we get into Iraq by mistake? Probably. Do I disapprove that we're there? No, not really. Personally I think we should have finished the job the first time around. I also believe that the overall strategy of taking the war to the terrorists and the countries we believe are aiding or abetting them is the correct strategy.
Kerry, on the other hand, doesn't really believe in the terrorist threat and even if he did he'd sit back and take a defensive stance. I don't believe such a posture is going to increase the safety of the US and I do believe it will encourage other despots and terrorists around the world to continue their attacks against the US. (Oh and the fact that Kerry himself has admitted to being a war criminal eliminates any moral authority he's supposed to have on conducting a war.)
You said: "I don't particularly mind the US playing world police as long as you obey some kind of ruleset and there are some checks and balances that prevent you from just raiding anyone you feel like."
Playing world police necessarily implies that Americans are going to be dying overseas for your police actions. What you're suggesting is that some extra-national body gets to set or at least approve/have veto power over those actions. Hence my comment.
And we do have a checks and balances system; it's called Congress. They authorized the war.
You also said: "...UNSEC in charge of allowing forceful invasions of sovereign nations. It's to keep the Chinese out of Taiwan. It's to keep the Germans out of Poland and the Russians out of Latvia. And it's to keep the Iraqis out of Kuwait."
Now, first off, it's not the UN that's keeping China out of Taiwan, it's the fact that he US sends a carrier battle group for a pleasure cruise over there every time China gets up on the wrong side of the bed. I don't know about the Russians and Latvia, but I don't recall Germany making any noises about annexing Poland recently. Oh, and the UN didn't really keep Iraq out of Kuwait did it? No, that would be largely the US who had to go clean up that mess.
And when the UN finally gets around to admitting they can't ignore the genocide in Dafur, guess who'll be called out to fix the problem? Yup that'll be US money and US blood on the ground over there.
You also said: "Is it strange that we want to live in stability and peace instead of living in fear, knowing there's a madman in the White House with his finger on the big red button?"
I find this comment particularly funny in the light of history. Why? Perhaps you don't remember (or maybe you weren't old enough) but this is EXACTLY the criticism that was leveled against Reagan when he confronted the USSR and brought about the end of the Cold War. Reagan was right then and I think that history will vindicate Bush's doctrine as well.
"Where is Germany, NATO, France?"
/ nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/31224 .htm
I'm sorry to say, that Germany and France have both already said that even if Kerry is elected, they're not going into Iraq.
From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6118472/
"...a top official of Germany's ruling Social Democratic Party quoted in Tuesday's edition of the Financial Times: "I cannot imagine that there will be any change in our decision not to send troops (to Iraq), whoever becomes president (of the United States).""
Also see:
http://www.iht.com/articles/540813.html
http:/
Sorry to burst your bubble there.
Well actually that's a bit untrue. Take the first sentence for example:
"Even after the final report of Charles Duelfer to Congress saying that Iraq did not have a significant WMD program, 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%)."
They're comparing apples to oranges. The report concluded that Iraq didn't have "_a significant WMD program_" but the question asked if "_Iraq had actual WMD_." Those are two completely different things.
You can argue about what constitutes a "significant WMD program" but WMD's have been discovered in Iraq. (Failed Sarin gas attack on a military convey back in May 2004 is one example.)
So the 47% of Bush voters believe correctly, there are proven incidences of WMDs in Iraq and 25% of them are presumably wrong depending again on your definition of "significant."
" UN needs to put together a real coalition soon to free you from your brain-washing overlords in D.C. "
Hah! And who would the UN have fight that war? The UN is corrupt sham of an organization that continues to exist only because it's been able to call on the US military to enforce its goals. Without the US military the UN is less than nothing.
Personally I think it's high time we end the charade that the UN has any authority, moral or otherwise, and simply disband it.
So in otherwords, you'd prefer that American's die where it's in your interests and if it happens to be in our interests too, the great?
I'm less than sympathetic to that viewpoint.
You're fooling yourself if you think Kerry is a hawk. Look at his post-Vietnam career; look at his Senate voting record. He only turned hawk long enough to defeat Dean in the primaries before slipping back into about as Dove-ish a Democrat as it's possible to be.
Kerry isn't advocating an immediate withdrawal from Iraq for two reasons:
1) He knows that he'll never get elected if he advocates such a position (he'll lose the moderate voters; he's got to win some of the states in the middle of the country) and
2) He knows that leaving Iraq now is an invitation for disaster and not just in the Middle East. (Korea is watching; El Queso is watching.)
The sad fact is that every plan Kerry's put forward so far is EXACTLY the plan that's already being executed. The only difference Kerry seems to be offering is that he can magically "do it better."
Worse, Kerry has had 19 months now and lots of additional evidence to decide if and how he would have gone to war with Iraq. He still can't make up his mind on either subject even with the added time and information. It's pretty darn easy to be a Monday morning quarterback and Kerry still can't offer a plan for Iraq that's substantially different from what's already being done.
Or could it be that supporters of President Bush endorse a foreign policy of premptive use of force against an irregular and non-national threat to the country's security?
There's a lot of talk about Bush's foreign policy but very little of it gets to the core issue: Bush believes in a foreign policy that is, simplistically, shoot first and ask questions later.
If you can understand that about Bush's core policy, then actions like the Iraq war are more explainable. Confronted with a rogue nation, conflicting and unclear intelligence, and a potential source of support for direct or indirect threats to the US, what does the Bush doctrine say? Shoot first ask questions later. If we're not sure, then apply force just in case.
It's certainly arguable whether that doctrine is really any more successful against an irregular threat like El Queso's brand of international terrorism. It's also anathama to the Democratic party in general who've been largely skitish about any armed conflict where Americans might come home in body bags.
Couple that with Kerry's apparent willingness to make US national security decisions dependant on provably corrupt organizations like the UN and support for a second Bush term doesn't have to originate with Bible-thumpers and corporate execs.
Quite simply there's a not-unfounded fear that Democrats in general, and John Kerry in particular, are unable to come to grips with the reality of a post-9/11 world.
Well if per capita is how we're going to measure it then pollution reduction is going to get a lot more popular in the US! Just think all we have to to is bump the population up to bring our per capita numbers down!
Just think: "Save the environment, have sex TODAY!"
Woo hoo!
National Geographic had an article recently about pollution in China and it was just down-right frightening.
Excerpts from the March 2004 issue are available here: http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0403/featu re4/index.html
I agree whole-heartedly on the appeal to non-hardcore gamers. My wife, who usually rolls her eyes at this sort of stuff, is a a newly converted hard core addict, as is the rest of my family. Last Christmas I think at least 3-4 new sets of the game were exchanged. Even my Mom puts down the grand-kids when we break the board out.
This is a very very fun game.
I'm not so hot on the Knights and Barbarians expansion as I feel it makes the game tedious (in a bad way), but the base set has plenty of replay value and this is truly a game where it's not over until it's over. I've seen some pretty amazing come-backs from players that everyone else had written off.
Anybody need sheep? Please?
No, read my comment again. I didn't say we'd starve, I said that the Green energy policy and agricultural policy are mutually exclusive.
Chemicals and pesticides allow for greater yield per acre.
Reducing chemicals and pesticides lowers yields. (I didn't say anything about extraordinary events like plauges.)
Lower yields means more acres have to worked to produce the same amount of food.
More acres worked means more energy consumption.
More energy consumption is exactly the opposite of what the Greens claim to want which is conservation.
Facts facts facts...please check them once in a while.
0 89:|/bss/d108query.html|1 63:|/bss/d108query.html|
" they can reisntate the draft like the want to,"
There is no movement by Bush to reinstate the draft. I assume you're referring to that ridiculous email that's making the rounds scaring people into believing that a re-elected Bush is planning on reinstating the draft. Here's a few points that will help:
1) Stop believing everything that shows up in your inbox. You'll be a lot less stressed and you'll save a lot on male performance enhancement products.
2) The Bills (HR 163 and S. 89) were introduced by, are you sitting down, DEMOCRATS!
o Rep Rangel, Charles B. [NY-15] (introduced 1/7/2003)
o Sen Hollings, Ernest F. [SC] (introduced 1/7/2003) (Yes, that Fritz Hollings.)
3) A quick visit to the Selective Service website confirms:
o Notwithstanding recent stories in the news media and on the Internet, Selective Service is not getting ready to conduct a draft for the U.S. Armed Forces -- either with a special skills or regular draft.
4) To help you in your pursuit of #1 above, try the following links:
o S. 89: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:SN00
o H.R. 163: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:HR00
o Selective Service: http://www.sss.gov/
5) The Bush administration is reportedly (Google for it) against both bills, although I can't substantiate that with anything on the White House website.