So, oh genius, why did the same band of fucks try to blow up the UN in 1993?
I know your pointy liberal head won't understand this, but the US is also the largest supplier of aid to Afghanistan. In the last 10 years, we've deployed troops to help Muslims in Kuwait, Somalia, Kosovo, and Bosnia. We give $2Billion/year to Egypt. We're negotiating a NAFTA-style free-trade pact with Jordan. The only thing keeping Saddam from committing genocide against the Kurds in the North of Iraq and the Shi'ites in the South of Iraq is the US-UK enforced No-Fly Zone.
The simple fact is they hate us, no matter how nice we are, no matter what we do. It's time to just kill the fuckers and be done with it. Bring back the Neutron Bomb and use the Middle East as the testing grounds.
The point is that the "Copland crap" doesn't count. None of that code is in OS X. Some of it is in Mac OS 8 and 9 (multi-threaded Finder comes to mind), though.
IIRC, the first boot of NextStep on a PPC machine was sometime in early 1997 (I think it was March when the digital camera-snapped screenshots appeared). So it took about 4 years from first boot to Mac OS X 10.0, and another 6 months to get to a usable version. I figure that it'll be another 6 months before I stop booting back into Mac OS 9.
Yes, I know it was a movie of the X-Men DVD running in the Apple DVD player app.
But they were able to grab the DVD RUNNING FULL SCREEN and capture it to a QuickTime movie that you can download off the web and watch on any QuickTime-enabled computer. Once you get full-screen DVD to QuickTime, you can convert it to anything and distribute snippets of it, just like Apple is currently distributing a snippet of X-Men via its web site.
I don't think this was done by pointing a video camera at a Mac screen, though I could be wrong.
The reasons why the icons don't show up is that Apple's Java team did a minor screw-up in the release of Java with 10.0 (there were no updates to Java in 10.0.1-10.0.4) and left those icons out of the.jars.
The Developer Previews of Mac OS X Java (now unneeded with 10.1's release) should fix that problem.
I don't know if anyone else has noticed this yet, but look at http://www.apple.com/macosx/theater/dvd.html (yes, it requires QuickTime). Apple is showing a video of the opening of X-Men running on a Mac desktop. It could be faked, but it'd be a hell of a fake.
So it looks like it is possible to capture DVD video under Mac OS X 10.1...does the MPAA know about this?
No, a warrant is tied to a particular phone line. This made sense when the only way to get a phone was through Ma Bell, and it took 80 gazillion years to get a new phone number or line installed.
Now, I could get a new cell phone every day of the week. And each one would require me to get a trip to a judge to get permission to listen in.
Furthermore, if I'm under survaliance and just go and borrow your phone, it would be illegal for the cops to listen in, because then they could be spying on someone who they are not looking for (you). The mob has been doing this trick for years.
The wiretap portions of this law make a lot of sense.
Sure, the gov. could make it a crime to wear certain pants, but what's going to happen when every court room in the nation has a mile-long line of people waiting to be arraigned
No, what happens is that laws like that are used for selective enforcement. It's a way for the cops to KNOW they've got you on something.
Certainly. Libertarians (as I understand the political philosophy) believe that government should only fund very specific things: security (internal and external) and justice (making sure that property disputes are settled and that criminal offenses are punished). Any services the government does provide must not be monopolies; anyone should be allowed to perform them and the government should be funded based on the fees it collects for its services.
Subsidies, bail-outs, what have you, are completely opposed in all the Libertarian theory that I've heard. It's seen as taking money by force from people (via the government's ability to punish) to fund failing businesses. Those businesses which are going to fail, should fail. Thinking like this led Congress to end the Amtrack subsidies, and is the reason why there is vocal opposition to farm subsidies and other "corporate welfare."
Thing is, there are some businesses where people will just not pay up front the necessary costs for the service. Some of them (dot-coms come to mind) are spurious, and should fail. But airlines and other mass transit systems are vastly necessary. They are the grease in the gears of an economy, moving people and stuffs around. Because it's necessary, the government, in moments of need by the industry and sanity by the government, steps in to provide necessary funding.
Of course, it's horribly inefficient for the government to redistribute funds, but people aren't willing to pay the costs up-front. It's psychological, really. Libertarian philosophy tends to think that people are completely rational (as well as economic genuises). Clearly, this is not so. So sometimes we need to do things the inefficient way, just because it can't be done any other way. It's not theft, just reality.
And something which should be pointed out is that the ONLY mass transit which has competition in the US is the airlines. There is (for all intents and purposes) only one bus line (Greyhound) and only one passenger rail system (Amtrack). Amtrack is quasi-private, and gets huge subsidies from the government (which are supposed to end pretty soon, IIRC).
There's not much money in moving people around, but we need to move people around to make other parts of the economy function.
It's in areas like this where Libertarian economic theory falls down; sometimes subsidies are necessary. It might be robbing Peter to pay Paul, but psychologically, it doesn't seem that way to the average guy. And nine-tenths of econ is really mass psychologogy.
Nahh...even rabid religious fanatics get discouraged after the first 10-20m get whacked.
Really? Then Islamic fanatics must be losing their nerve; the wars of conquest which spread Islam killed more, (pro-rated to the current world population).
I don't think the Muslim fundamentalists will stop until every Christian and Jew (and non-fanatical Muslim) on the planet is dead. What they may not realize is that the world will be destroyed by the US response to these terror attacks. Or perhaps they do realize, and want to destroy us all. I dunno.
But if you're right, should you wait for them, or just kill yourself now? Better play it safe. Do it now.
We live to say NO to death. Dying for a cause is easy. Living for one is hard.
There are three advantages to using the boat method:
1. There's no need to clear any sort of customs. The more you move the bomb, the more people might see it.
2. A large cloud of radioactive steam will be created, killing millions more from radiation poisoning and cancer.
3. It's a terror attack. Americans are now scared of planes. A boat-based nuke will make American scared of boats. Slowly, the US cuts itself off from the world, which is what Bin Laden and his ilk wants.
Personally, I think we're doomed to lose this battle because we aren't willing to be nearly as evil as our enemy. It wasn't always like this. As mentioned in an editoral in the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41 213-2001Sep16.html), the US killed 900,000 Japanese civilians (not including Hiroshima and Nagasaki!) in the closing months of WWII. Today, we won't do that, even though the stakes are far higher today than they were against a Japan that was isolated, out of fuel, and starving.
Meanwhile, our enemy hides among civilians, and has no qualms about using anything as a weapon. We have qualms about killing the civilians they surround themselves with. In short, we're fucked. Even after we are nuked and gassed and exposed to smallpox and anthrax, we won't do what's necessary to save our civilization against the Hordes.
Ah well, it was a good civilization while it lasted.
So your "proof" is that the US government knew something was up and a code word for Air Force One was used. Gee, all this means is that US has an intelligence service and someone read a Tom Clancy novel.
Sounds like perfect grounds for calling the US Government complicit in the slaughter of its citizens and igniting unfounded global fears of worldwide terror.
I was discussing the rights of Muslims in Israel. The original asshole starts mentioning "white slavery" and prostitution. Tell me how one relates to the other. An attack which is off the point is not valid.
And since he started the ad homenim attacks, I thought I'd continue them.
Jews cannot buy land either; most land in Israel is owned by the government or the Jewish National Fund. The JNF was founded to buy land for Jewish use; it's a private organization which has been funded by Jews worldwide for over 100 years. You may not like the policy, but the fact that Jews have to buy back their homeland is sick, anyway.
Most muslims in Israel are not Israeli citizens
Bullshit. The ones in the West Bank and Gaza aren't citizens. But, then again, they fled their homes inside of Israel. My great-grandfather fled his home in Russia over 100 years ago. Only a loony would think that I'm a Russian citizen, or that I (or any of his 100+ descendants) have a right to a single square inch of Russian soil. You flee your land, you give up your land. This is a standard rule.
The borders to the occupied territories can be closed any time the government feels like, making it impossible to hold a job
Gee, somehow Israel can prosper, despite being 5 million Jews (and one million Arabs) in a sea of 1.2 BILLION Arabs, most of whom have sworn to destroy it. You don't hear Israelis pissing and moaning for the chance to work in Lebanon or Syria. You can't say it's the support of the US and worldwide Jewry which keeps Israel afloat. US financial aid amounts to about 3% of Israel's GNP. There are fewer than 20 MILLION Jews on the entire planet. Their entire net worth is less than that of a small oil-rich Arab emirate. Maybe it's the fault of the Palestinians that they NEED to go to Israel to get jobs.
Israel (and especially the Sharon government) is in a stew of its own making.
Right. So when Israel offered to give back the entire West Bank, Gaza, and Sinai in August 1967 in exchange for peace, it was Israel's fault the offer was refused? When Israel made the same offer after the Yom Kippur War in 1973-1974, it was Israel's fault again, right? How many times do you have to offer to give back land before you get to keep it? What's the rule, oh wise one?
Mark my words; this has NOTHING to do with Israel. Israel is an excuse, not a reason. If Israel vanished off the face of the Earth tomorrow, these thugs would just make up a different reason to hate us. Shitheads like you are willing to sell out the only country which even approximates Western values in order to secure your own security. It won't work. Please point out a single time in history that appeasement worked.
And, like all cowards and intellectually bankrupt maggots, you not only attack the messenger and refuse to post under your own name, but you also bring up issues which aren't even under debate.
Who cares if prostitution is legal in Israel? It's legal in the Netherlands. Where's your moral outrage against the Dutch? Oh, that's right, they're not Jewish, so you don't care.
And anti-prostitution laws are stupid, anyway. As George Carlin once said, "Selling's legal, fucking's legal, why isn't selling fucking legal?"
Antisemites like you just can't stand the fact that Israel is a success, while your country and the countries and cultures that espouse your philosophies are shitholes. While you and your countrymates are destined for the ash-heap of history, Israel and the West will be around for a long time.
They anger me because it says that, for dubious political gain, the US government slaughtered 5,000 of its own citizens. They say this without a shred of evidence, just more of the mindless hatred of the US government which has been the hallmark of the lunatic fringe, both right and left. It diverts attention away from the real problem, the real people who we KNOW did this, who everyone KNOWS did this.
People who are making up these conspiracy theories are doing it because while the KNOW in their heart of hearts who did this, they can't bring themselves to accept that people that they have supported did it. So they make up fairy tales to delude themselves, and try to pass them on, hoping that they might have company in their delusions.
based on evidence which is no more credible than the various conspiracy theories going around.
Oh horseshit. The evidence for Bin Laden's involvement is well-known. He has means (hundreds of millions of dollars, thousands of followers), motive (he has repeatedly said that he wanted the WTC to come down. His group bombed it 8 years ago, and has performed synchronized attacks in the past.), and opportunity (19 known followers of his were on the plane, and flight manuals in Arabic were found in their rooms). If you weren't a fucking moron, you'd consider this a slam-dunk case.
What is your evidence for the US government doing this? Huh?
I will not disagree that Israel has its problems. While one should hold Israel to the standard which its founding father, David Ben-Gurion, wanted it to be held ("A light among the nations"), as nations go, especially young democracies, Israel is astounding. But that doesn't mean that Israel shouldn't be more egalitarian, while remaining primarily, a Jewish state, providing Jews a return to the home they sorely missed for nearly 2,000 years.
By comparison, fifty years into its existance, the US was killing Indians and arguing over slavery. Anti-immigrant hysteria was beginning. It took until nearly the US' 200th birthday before Black Americans had the unimpeded ability to vote across the country. Indian rights are still abysmal.
And, as you mention, Turkey, which is about 30 years older as a democracy and hundreds of years older as a country, is the closest thing to Israeli-style democracy. Not surprisingly, Turkey is Israel's closest ally, after the US.
If the Palestinians had accepted the peace treaty proposed by Ehud Barak, or even offered a counter-proposal, things would be different in Israel today. But they didn't, and now that the world has seen Palestinians dancing in the streets at the destruction of the WTC, they'll be lucky to get a penny in funding from the First World, much less support for a state. As Abba Eban once said, "The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity."
As Benjamin Netanyahu has said, "The Arabs do not hate the West because of Israel, they hate Israel because of the West."
Bin Laden and his band of sheep-fuckers hate Israel because Israel is further proof that the best way to have a prosperous country is to embrace the Western values of freedom, democracy, capitalism, and pluralism. (Yes, pluralism. Israel is arguably the best place in the Middle East to be a Muslim. Being a Sufi or Suni or Shi'ite or just not too religious in the wrong Middle Eastern country is a death sentence. Not so in Israel. All Muslim citizens have the right to vote and to worship however they choose. Remember, after Israel captured East Jerusalem and the Dome of the Rock in 1967, they turned its administration back over to the Muslim authorities. When Jordan and Egypt captured Jewish holy sites in 1948, they destroyed them, as the Palestinians did to Joseph's Tomb in 2000.)
It's only fools who think that Israel is the problem. Israel is the solution, not the problem. If only there was a single Arab country which embraced the same values as Israel, the Middle East would be a far saner place.
Not only are you a moron, you are sick, sick moron.
First of all, the recession in 1981-1982 was far, far worse. So was the recession, post Gulf War. Technically, the US isn't even recession right now. So this would be a pretty fucking stupid thing to do right now.
Secondly, how is it that the 10 billion journalists haven't uncovered any hole in the current theory, that a bunch of fucks working for Osama Bin Laden did this and have been planning this for 5 years? Do you think that this "secret" US government agency somehow managed to convince 5 known anti-American terrorists to get on each plane?
Finally, this attack has completely ruined all of Bush's plans. Missile defense is looking like a really pointless idea now. There will need to be tax INCREASES to fund the military. And his isolationist policies are now looking mighty quaint. So this "secret" agency would have to be out to fuck the President's official policies.
How dare you even propose this concept. You should be ashamed of yourself.
What's necessary is a "suicide switch", which sends out a signal to the authorities, and flies the plane in the direction of the nearest ocean. No override without a command from the military. When the plane runs out of fuel, it will crash into the ocean. Awful for the people on-board, but it will remove planes as a weapon.
Circuit breakers being pulled should be made irrelevant. Just put it in the baggage compartment, not in the cockpit, or bury it in a place which can't be accessed while the plane is in-flight.
Now, I'm NOT saying that I am in favor of this, or the backdoor encryption rules. But in the WTC/Petagon attack, the thugs were living in the US for a while. One can imagine that they were communicating and firming up plans.
By and large, if someone is going to strike at the US with a terrorist attack, they will communicate with someone in the US. Unless they are going to launch missiles at the US...and then we're back at the Missile Defense can of worms...
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And explain Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. While you're at it, explain US troops in Haiti. Or Panama.
Must be those vast oil fields of West Africa, Central Europe, Hispaniola, and Central America.
-jon
I know your pointy liberal head won't understand this, but the US is also the largest supplier of aid to Afghanistan. In the last 10 years, we've deployed troops to help Muslims in Kuwait, Somalia, Kosovo, and Bosnia. We give $2Billion/year to Egypt. We're negotiating a NAFTA-style free-trade pact with Jordan. The only thing keeping Saddam from committing genocide against the Kurds in the North of Iraq and the Shi'ites in the South of Iraq is the US-UK enforced No-Fly Zone.
The simple fact is they hate us, no matter how nice we are, no matter what we do. It's time to just kill the fuckers and be done with it. Bring back the Neutron Bomb and use the Middle East as the testing grounds.
-jon
So, how did you capture that DVD video? Did you have to plug a standalone DVD player's video out into a Mac with a FireWire capture device?
Not that I'm looking to do this, just want to know how it's done.
-jon
IIRC, the first boot of NextStep on a PPC machine was sometime in early 1997 (I think it was March when the digital camera-snapped screenshots appeared). So it took about 4 years from first boot to Mac OS X 10.0, and another 6 months to get to a usable version. I figure that it'll be another 6 months before I stop booting back into Mac OS 9.
-jon
But they were able to grab the DVD RUNNING FULL SCREEN and capture it to a QuickTime movie that you can download off the web and watch on any QuickTime-enabled computer. Once you get full-screen DVD to QuickTime, you can convert it to anything and distribute snippets of it, just like Apple is currently distributing a snippet of X-Men via its web site.
I don't think this was done by pointing a video camera at a Mac screen, though I could be wrong.
-jon
The Developer Previews of Mac OS X Java (now unneeded with 10.1's release) should fix that problem.
-jon
So it looks like it is possible to capture DVD video under Mac OS X 10.1...does the MPAA know about this?
-jon
Now, I could get a new cell phone every day of the week. And each one would require me to get a trip to a judge to get permission to listen in.
Furthermore, if I'm under survaliance and just go and borrow your phone, it would be illegal for the cops to listen in, because then they could be spying on someone who they are not looking for (you). The mob has been doing this trick for years.
The wiretap portions of this law make a lot of sense.
-jon
No, what happens is that laws like that are used for selective enforcement. It's a way for the cops to KNOW they've got you on something.
-jon
Certainly. Libertarians (as I understand the political philosophy) believe that government should only fund very specific things: security (internal and external) and justice (making sure that property disputes are settled and that criminal offenses are punished). Any services the government does provide must not be monopolies; anyone should be allowed to perform them and the government should be funded based on the fees it collects for its services.
Subsidies, bail-outs, what have you, are completely opposed in all the Libertarian theory that I've heard. It's seen as taking money by force from people (via the government's ability to punish) to fund failing businesses. Those businesses which are going to fail, should fail. Thinking like this led Congress to end the Amtrack subsidies, and is the reason why there is vocal opposition to farm subsidies and other "corporate welfare."
Thing is, there are some businesses where people will just not pay up front the necessary costs for the service. Some of them (dot-coms come to mind) are spurious, and should fail. But airlines and other mass transit systems are vastly necessary. They are the grease in the gears of an economy, moving people and stuffs around. Because it's necessary, the government, in moments of need by the industry and sanity by the government, steps in to provide necessary funding.
Of course, it's horribly inefficient for the government to redistribute funds, but people aren't willing to pay the costs up-front. It's psychological, really. Libertarian philosophy tends to think that people are completely rational (as well as economic genuises). Clearly, this is not so. So sometimes we need to do things the inefficient way, just because it can't be done any other way. It's not theft, just reality.
Did I misstate anything about Libertarianism?
-jon
There's not much money in moving people around, but we need to move people around to make other parts of the economy function.
It's in areas like this where Libertarian economic theory falls down; sometimes subsidies are necessary. It might be robbing Peter to pay Paul, but psychologically, it doesn't seem that way to the average guy. And nine-tenths of econ is really mass psychologogy.
-jon
Really? Then Islamic fanatics must be losing their nerve; the wars of conquest which spread Islam killed more, (pro-rated to the current world population).
I don't think the Muslim fundamentalists will stop until every Christian and Jew (and non-fanatical Muslim) on the planet is dead. What they may not realize is that the world will be destroyed by the US response to these terror attacks. Or perhaps they do realize, and want to destroy us all. I dunno.
But if you're right, should you wait for them, or just kill yourself now? Better play it safe. Do it now.
We live to say NO to death. Dying for a cause is easy. Living for one is hard.
-jon
Either way, the US can't win unless we're willing to kill about a billion people first. We're not. We'll lose.
-jon
1. There's no need to clear any sort of customs. The more you move the bomb, the more people might see it.
2. A large cloud of radioactive steam will be created, killing millions more from radiation poisoning and cancer.
3. It's a terror attack. Americans are now scared of planes. A boat-based nuke will make American scared of boats. Slowly, the US cuts itself off from the world, which is what Bin Laden and his ilk wants.
Personally, I think we're doomed to lose this battle because we aren't willing to be nearly as evil as our enemy. It wasn't always like this. As mentioned in an editoral in the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41 213-2001Sep16.html), the US killed 900,000 Japanese civilians (not including Hiroshima and Nagasaki!) in the closing months of WWII. Today, we won't do that, even though the stakes are far higher today than they were against a Japan that was isolated, out of fuel, and starving.
Meanwhile, our enemy hides among civilians, and has no qualms about using anything as a weapon. We have qualms about killing the civilians they surround themselves with. In short, we're fucked. Even after we are nuked and gassed and exposed to smallpox and anthrax, we won't do what's necessary to save our civilization against the Hordes.
Ah well, it was a good civilization while it lasted.
-jon
My guess: nuclear bomb on a boat in NYC's harbor. You read it here first.
-jon
Sounds like perfect grounds for calling the US Government complicit in the slaughter of its citizens and igniting unfounded global fears of worldwide terror.
You asshole.
-jon
I was discussing the rights of Muslims in Israel. The original asshole starts mentioning "white slavery" and prostitution. Tell me how one relates to the other. An attack which is off the point is not valid.
And since he started the ad homenim attacks, I thought I'd continue them.
-jon
Jews cannot buy land either; most land in Israel is owned by the government or the Jewish National Fund. The JNF was founded to buy land for Jewish use; it's a private organization which has been funded by Jews worldwide for over 100 years. You may not like the policy, but the fact that Jews have to buy back their homeland is sick, anyway.
Most muslims in Israel are not Israeli citizens
Bullshit. The ones in the West Bank and Gaza aren't citizens. But, then again, they fled their homes inside of Israel. My great-grandfather fled his home in Russia over 100 years ago. Only a loony would think that I'm a Russian citizen, or that I (or any of his 100+ descendants) have a right to a single square inch of Russian soil. You flee your land, you give up your land. This is a standard rule.
The borders to the occupied territories can be closed any time the government feels like, making it impossible to hold a job
Gee, somehow Israel can prosper, despite being 5 million Jews (and one million Arabs) in a sea of 1.2 BILLION Arabs, most of whom have sworn to destroy it. You don't hear Israelis pissing and moaning for the chance to work in Lebanon or Syria. You can't say it's the support of the US and worldwide Jewry which keeps Israel afloat. US financial aid amounts to about 3% of Israel's GNP. There are fewer than 20 MILLION Jews on the entire planet. Their entire net worth is less than that of a small oil-rich Arab emirate. Maybe it's the fault of the Palestinians that they NEED to go to Israel to get jobs.
Israel (and especially the Sharon government) is in a stew of its own making.
Right. So when Israel offered to give back the entire West Bank, Gaza, and Sinai in August 1967 in exchange for peace, it was Israel's fault the offer was refused? When Israel made the same offer after the Yom Kippur War in 1973-1974, it was Israel's fault again, right? How many times do you have to offer to give back land before you get to keep it? What's the rule, oh wise one?
Mark my words; this has NOTHING to do with Israel. Israel is an excuse, not a reason. If Israel vanished off the face of the Earth tomorrow, these thugs would just make up a different reason to hate us. Shitheads like you are willing to sell out the only country which even approximates Western values in order to secure your own security. It won't work. Please point out a single time in history that appeasement worked.
-jon
Who cares if prostitution is legal in Israel? It's legal in the Netherlands. Where's your moral outrage against the Dutch? Oh, that's right, they're not Jewish, so you don't care.
And anti-prostitution laws are stupid, anyway. As George Carlin once said, "Selling's legal, fucking's legal, why isn't selling fucking legal?"
Antisemites like you just can't stand the fact that Israel is a success, while your country and the countries and cultures that espouse your philosophies are shitholes. While you and your countrymates are destined for the ash-heap of history, Israel and the West will be around for a long time.
-jon
They anger me because it says that, for dubious political gain, the US government slaughtered 5,000 of its own citizens. They say this without a shred of evidence, just more of the mindless hatred of the US government which has been the hallmark of the lunatic fringe, both right and left. It diverts attention away from the real problem, the real people who we KNOW did this, who everyone KNOWS did this.
People who are making up these conspiracy theories are doing it because while the KNOW in their heart of hearts who did this, they can't bring themselves to accept that people that they have supported did it. So they make up fairy tales to delude themselves, and try to pass them on, hoping that they might have company in their delusions.
based on evidence which is no more credible than the various conspiracy theories going around.
Oh horseshit. The evidence for Bin Laden's involvement is well-known. He has means (hundreds of millions of dollars, thousands of followers), motive (he has repeatedly said that he wanted the WTC to come down. His group bombed it 8 years ago, and has performed synchronized attacks in the past.), and opportunity (19 known followers of his were on the plane, and flight manuals in Arabic were found in their rooms). If you weren't a fucking moron, you'd consider this a slam-dunk case.
What is your evidence for the US government doing this? Huh?
-jon
By comparison, fifty years into its existance, the US was killing Indians and arguing over slavery. Anti-immigrant hysteria was beginning. It took until nearly the US' 200th birthday before Black Americans had the unimpeded ability to vote across the country. Indian rights are still abysmal.
And, as you mention, Turkey, which is about 30 years older as a democracy and hundreds of years older as a country, is the closest thing to Israeli-style democracy. Not surprisingly, Turkey is Israel's closest ally, after the US.
If the Palestinians had accepted the peace treaty proposed by Ehud Barak, or even offered a counter-proposal, things would be different in Israel today. But they didn't, and now that the world has seen Palestinians dancing in the streets at the destruction of the WTC, they'll be lucky to get a penny in funding from the First World, much less support for a state. As Abba Eban once said, "The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity."
-jon
Bin Laden and his band of sheep-fuckers hate Israel because Israel is further proof that the best way to have a prosperous country is to embrace the Western values of freedom, democracy, capitalism, and pluralism. (Yes, pluralism. Israel is arguably the best place in the Middle East to be a Muslim. Being a Sufi or Suni or Shi'ite or just not too religious in the wrong Middle Eastern country is a death sentence. Not so in Israel. All Muslim citizens have the right to vote and to worship however they choose. Remember, after Israel captured East Jerusalem and the Dome of the Rock in 1967, they turned its administration back over to the Muslim authorities. When Jordan and Egypt captured Jewish holy sites in 1948, they destroyed them, as the Palestinians did to Joseph's Tomb in 2000.)
It's only fools who think that Israel is the problem. Israel is the solution, not the problem. If only there was a single Arab country which embraced the same values as Israel, the Middle East would be a far saner place.
-jon
First of all, the recession in 1981-1982 was far, far worse. So was the recession, post Gulf War. Technically, the US isn't even recession right now. So this would be a pretty fucking stupid thing to do right now.
Secondly, how is it that the 10 billion journalists haven't uncovered any hole in the current theory, that a bunch of fucks working for Osama Bin Laden did this and have been planning this for 5 years? Do you think that this "secret" US government agency somehow managed to convince 5 known anti-American terrorists to get on each plane?
Finally, this attack has completely ruined all of Bush's plans. Missile defense is looking like a really pointless idea now. There will need to be tax INCREASES to fund the military. And his isolationist policies are now looking mighty quaint. So this "secret" agency would have to be out to fuck the President's official policies.
How dare you even propose this concept. You should be ashamed of yourself.
-jon
Circuit breakers being pulled should be made irrelevant. Just put it in the baggage compartment, not in the cockpit, or bury it in a place which can't be accessed while the plane is in-flight.
-jon
Now, I'm NOT saying that I am in favor of this, or the backdoor encryption rules. But in the WTC/Petagon attack, the thugs were living in the US for a while. One can imagine that they were communicating and firming up plans.
By and large, if someone is going to strike at the US with a terrorist attack, they will communicate with someone in the US. Unless they are going to launch missiles at the US...and then we're back at the Missile Defense can of worms...
-jon