Israel CONTINUES to exist due to US aid. If the US stopped aiding them, the Arabs would kill more Jews than the Nazis did. And probably in a much shorter period of time.
If MOST followers of Islam believe that Jihad to demand violence is a bastardization - then where is the outcry of prominent Islamic leaders?
These people should be heard from! They should be getting on Larry King Live and taking out ads in major newspapers, and appearing on TV or Radio wherever they can, and say:
"Followers of Muhammed - Jihad is *not* justification for violence and killing, this is *not* a war of Christendom against Islam or vice-versa, it's a bunch of wacko fundamentalists twisting Allah's word to suit their own purposes."
I know that at my Church, our pastor spent a half an hour talking about how Jerry Falwell was full of crap, and saying that "God allowed this to happen" was a bunch of baloney.
I think that it's time for the more moderate (read: SANE) religious leaders of the world to take a stand against the extremist freaks - and remove them from legitimacy.
The other thing is;
no matter how many zillions of dollars you spend on smart bombs which avoid innocent civilians, we could hit a warehouse and the Taliban will say - "hey, here's a blown-up building, it was an orphanage, and now all these poor little kids are killed by the evil Americans"
Who do you think the average muslim will believe? And I'm not talking about the extremists. Of course, this kind of propaganda is what creates extremists.
I remember the Iraqi propaganda during the gulf war where we blew up a "milk factory" and another instance where we hit a military command post that had women and children sheltering in the basement. I saw the surveillance photos on CNN of Iraqi Scud launchers hidden in archeological sites in Babylon (trying to create the perception that we were blowing up the archeological sites - which we did not do). And now the revisionists are talking about the "Basra Road Massacre" (where US Troops slaughtered tens of thousands of retreating Iraqi soldiers carrying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of looted Kuwaiti property). To me - an average US citizen, I think that action was totally justified. They were ordered to surrender, and they just kept running with their booty. But to muslims I've talked to (even 5 years ago) - it's a widely held belief that it was the US commiting genocide.
The idea that we knew that Pearl Harbor was coming is actually a well-known theory. And it fits with the old proverb of "keep your friends close, and your enemies closer".
Is this even possible? why yes! It's been done before? Remember Iran?
No matter what fluffy bunny we put in office, the radicals will come in and fuck their shit up - or if they don't they'll be fighting and suicide-bombing for the next 5 generations.
You can win people's hearts, but not ALL people's hearts. There will always be radical fucknuts. Even in the USA we had our unibomber and Tim McVeigh.
. . . not to mention the very costly POLITICAL cleanup operations we've seen in the past 20 years.
If only we weren't so reliant on foreign oil, we could just raise a middle finger to the middle east, and let them play by themselves in their own sandboxes.
The worst are the pop-ups that are designed to look like error windows or dialog boxes.
My 6 year old kid gets confused when I have to explain to him that, no, this is not an error - this is an advertisement telling you that they want you to gamble at their online casino.
she fucked Data. I don't know if that qualifies as an heterosexual encounter - but he said he was "fully functional and programmed in multiple techniques" - so I'm sure it ran the gamut.
I think that the above post is PROOF that you can take any piece of crap, analyze it after the fact, out of context even, and read into it any old "deeper meaning" you can rationalize for it.
I guess Movie Reviewers and Art Critics have been doing that for most of the 20th Century. . .
I think that the greatest benefit that an analyst company like Gartner could provide would be a web page that tracks:
Product announcments, projected release dates, and every company's performance with regard to how accurate those release dates projections typically are.
I agree with everything you say - but I still don't wish the man harm. Especially the kind of harm that would be suffered by victims of the WTC attack.
I do wish he would be brought to justice, and kept in a nice secure cell where he can't harm society anymore.
These ideas came from Microsoft's R&D lab. Not from their marketing department. Is it any suprise that they're actually good ideas? These people are scientists, and well-paid ones.
However, by the time these ideas make it into a sellable MS product, marketing will have perverted them into something that sucks.
. ..yeah, if your car rusts out in two years, smokes, and the muffler's dragging, then you're not permitted to drive it in public - so that everyone can see what a piece of crap a 2 year old Ford/Chevy/Dodge is.
if you're out there disparaging Microsoft software and services, and you're USING them, then that's pretty hypocritical, and you should switch to vi/Linux/Apache.
Right?
I mean, doing that, and enforcing a license like that, are roughly ethically equivalent things.
I was just replying to the notion that since America is a democracy that the civilians DID deserve to be bombed because the civilians were responsible for the policies of their government. Which would be laughable even if we were a democracy.
We don't NEED to take over afghanistan. We just need to go in there, make a few arrests, and come back.
When Russia got their asses kicked, it was because the *population* was motivated against them, and they were backed. By the US. And because Russia didn't commit enough forces to get the job done, because they were afraid of the international backlash it would cause.
MOST of the people of Afghanistan hate the Taliban. They will welcome the US, and the foreign aid that will inevitably come with it. And our mine-removal efforts.
most of the advantage that the defenders will have in mountainous terrain will be lost to:
US Helicopter Gunships (which have 40 years worth of technological advances over the feared Russian ones). US recon techniques including IR, radar, etc. The new sniper-finding technology (using several microphones and a computer) has worked wonders in Kosovo and Bosnia. It will do the same in Afghanistan.
I'm more afraid of a wishy-washy Pakistan than a united in US-defiance Afghanistan. Pakistan has nukes, and a strong interest in keeping the Taliban in-charge.
Slashdot Mirror
um - Israel exists because of a UN ruling.
Israel CONTINUES to exist due to US aid. If the US stopped aiding them, the Arabs would kill more Jews than the Nazis did. And probably in a much shorter period of time.
This is what I don't get.
If MOST followers of Islam believe that Jihad to demand violence is a bastardization - then where is the outcry of prominent Islamic leaders?
These people should be heard from! They should be getting on Larry King Live and taking out ads in major newspapers, and appearing on TV or Radio wherever they can, and say:
"Followers of Muhammed - Jihad is *not* justification for violence and killing, this is *not* a war of Christendom against Islam or vice-versa, it's a bunch of wacko fundamentalists twisting Allah's word to suit their own purposes."
I know that at my Church, our pastor spent a half an hour talking about how Jerry Falwell was full of crap, and saying that "God allowed this to happen" was a bunch of baloney.
I think that it's time for the more moderate (read: SANE) religious leaders of the world to take a stand against the extremist freaks - and remove them from legitimacy.
The other thing is;
no matter how many zillions of dollars you spend on smart bombs which avoid innocent civilians, we could hit a warehouse and the Taliban will say - "hey, here's a blown-up building, it was an orphanage, and now all these poor little kids are killed by the evil Americans"
Who do you think the average muslim will believe? And I'm not talking about the extremists. Of course, this kind of propaganda is what creates extremists.
I remember the Iraqi propaganda during the gulf war where we blew up a "milk factory" and another instance where we hit a military command post that had women and children sheltering in the basement. I saw the surveillance photos on CNN of Iraqi Scud launchers hidden in archeological sites in Babylon (trying to create the perception that we were blowing up the archeological sites - which we did not do). And now the revisionists are talking about the "Basra Road Massacre" (where US Troops slaughtered tens of thousands of retreating Iraqi soldiers carrying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of looted Kuwaiti property). To me - an average US citizen, I think that action was totally justified. They were ordered to surrender, and they just kept running with their booty. But to muslims I've talked to (even 5 years ago) - it's a widely held belief that it was the US commiting genocide.
The idea that we knew that Pearl Harbor was coming is actually a well-known theory. And it fits with the old proverb of "keep your friends close, and your enemies closer".
God DAMN I wish I had some mod-points for you, my friend.
I, for one, am sick to death of this "poor starving Iraqis" bullshit.
Iraqis problems originate from one person, and that is the "Hero" Saddam.
Is this even possible? why yes! It's been done before? Remember Iran?
No matter what fluffy bunny we put in office, the radicals will come in and fuck their shit up - or if they don't they'll be fighting and suicide-bombing for the next 5 generations.
You can win people's hearts, but not ALL people's hearts. There will always be radical fucknuts. Even in the USA we had our unibomber and Tim McVeigh.
. . . not to mention the very costly POLITICAL cleanup operations we've seen in the past 20 years.
If only we weren't so reliant on foreign oil, we could just raise a middle finger to the middle east, and let them play by themselves in their own sandboxes.
so what does that mean? Annoy them until they subscribe? Coerce them into subscribing?
I take the alternate choice - they can take their content and shove it up their asses. Rot in dot-bomb hell, Salon.
The worst are the pop-ups that are designed to look like error windows or dialog boxes.
My 6 year old kid gets confused when I have to explain to him that, no, this is not an error - this is an advertisement telling you that they want you to gamble at their online casino.
People who design such ads should be shot.
she fucked Data. I don't know if that qualifies as an heterosexual encounter - but he said he was "fully functional and programmed in multiple techniques" - so I'm sure it ran the gamut.
Gore OR Bush?
CDW.com asked me if I wanted to use passport when I signed up last week.
The series would have been FAR better with Chris Tucker as the Capitan.
And Jackie Chan as his First Officer.
No, Starfleet is *not* derivative of the USAF or the US-anything. This was *after* WWIII, remember? There was no more USA after that.
I think that the above post is PROOF that you can take any piece of crap, analyze it after the fact, out of context even, and read into it any old "deeper meaning" you can rationalize for it.
I guess Movie Reviewers and Art Critics have been doing that for most of the 20th Century. . .
I think that the greatest benefit that an analyst company like Gartner could provide would be a web page that tracks:
Product announcments, projected release dates, and every company's performance with regard to how accurate those release dates projections typically are.
I agree with everything you say - but I still don't wish the man harm. Especially the kind of harm that would be suffered by victims of the WTC attack.
I do wish he would be brought to justice, and kept in a nice secure cell where he can't harm society anymore.
These ideas came from Microsoft's R&D lab. Not from their marketing department. Is it any suprise that they're actually good ideas? These people are scientists, and well-paid ones.
However, by the time these ideas make it into a sellable MS product, marketing will have perverted them into something that sucks.
but that's different. It's open source. if you don't like vi. . . fix it. :)
. . .yeah, if your car rusts out in two years, smokes, and the muffler's dragging, then you're not permitted to drive it in public - so that everyone can see what a piece of crap a 2 year old Ford/Chevy/Dodge is.
if you're out there disparaging Microsoft software and services, and you're USING them, then that's pretty hypocritical, and you should switch to vi/Linux/Apache.
Right?
I mean, doing that, and enforcing a license like that, are roughly ethically equivalent things.
since it would be the government that would have to enforce that contract, then the government would be restricting the speech.
I don't know if it's legal or not from a DMCA standpoint - but it's certainly NOT ethical, from a humanity standpoint.
I was just replying to the notion that since America is a democracy that the civilians DID deserve to be bombed because the civilians were responsible for the policies of their government. Which would be laughable even if we were a democracy.
No, only 46% of voters in the WTC were responsible for Bush.
We don't NEED to take over afghanistan. We just need to go in there, make a few arrests, and come back.
When Russia got their asses kicked, it was because the *population* was motivated against them, and they were backed. By the US. And because Russia didn't commit enough forces to get the job done, because they were afraid of the international backlash it would cause.
MOST of the people of Afghanistan hate the Taliban. They will welcome the US, and the foreign aid that will inevitably come with it. And our mine-removal efforts.
most of the advantage that the defenders will have in mountainous terrain will be lost to:
US Helicopter Gunships (which have 40 years worth of technological advances over the feared Russian ones). US recon techniques including IR, radar, etc. The new sniper-finding technology (using several microphones and a computer) has worked wonders in Kosovo and Bosnia. It will do the same in Afghanistan.
I'm more afraid of a wishy-washy Pakistan than a united in US-defiance Afghanistan. Pakistan has nukes, and a strong interest in keeping the Taliban in-charge.