spent half his life under the influence of various and sundry illegitimate mind altering drugs
And there's no room in the world for someone to reform himself?
true social conservativism by championing an unjust war
Depends on whom you ask.
being the governor who killed more prisoners than any in the history of the United States
That's a valid point, although most conservatives are pro-capital punishment.
funding abortions of relatives and past girlfriends
Does he do that now? Or is this something like the drinking and drugs that he gave up when he realized it was wrong, and then amended his life.
neos his fiscal policy is not his, it's dicated by the corporations in the back pulling on the puppet strings
Just like liberals are all controlled by the unions and the trial lawyers?
No, Bush is neither the social conservative he wants you to think he is, nor is he the fiscal liberal many think he is.
Is he the perfect social conservative candidate? Hardly, but the alternative is the perfect social liberal candidate, despite his claims to the contrary. I would bet Kerry would be for gay marriage if he weren't running for President.
Is Bush a fiscal liberal? Not really, because he failed at the "tax" part of "tax and spend".
I've been following electoral-vote.com for weeks... two weeks ago it looked like today. A week ago the electoral projects were almost exactly reversed from what they are today. A week from now? Who knows.
This is like measuring jelly with a caliper. It's extremely precise, but what can you learn from it.
Cheney is Grand Moff Tarkin, Clinton is Darth Vader, Karl Rove is Emperor Palpatine,Bush is Jar Jar Binks,Beware the WTO.
Hey, this is fun, but I'd make some changes. I won't even try to be partisan about it.
Bush is Luke Skywalker. Clinton is Han Solo, no doubt about it. John Kerry is C3PO... wait, wait, John Kerry is that two-headed announcer played by Greg Proops. No, I think C3PO is a good fit. John Edwards is the little muppet who sits next to Jabba and laughs at everything. Or maybe John Edwards is an Ewok.
Rumsfeld is Count Dooku. Howard Dean was one of the R2 units that got shot off of Queen Amidala's space ship while trying to repair it. Al Gore was that guy who wandered aimlessly around the Star Destroyer bridge with a computer stuck in his head, until he lost in 2000 and became Chewbacca. Ronald Reagan was Ben Kenobi.
But, Dick Cheney is Grand Moff Tarkin... that's a perfect fit.
It wasn't a fair characterization (Stockdale wasn't retarded or senile)
No, but he was an idiot to think people wouldn't paint him that way. He made it worse with his funny but trivializing comment about his hearing aid.
It was the same with Kerry's "I voted for it before I voted against it." quote. I immediately knew what he meant by that, but it was still incredibly stupid to say because we've been predictably and relentlessly beat about the head and shoulders with it for months.
If he wanted to look consistent, maybe he should explain why he said it would be irresponsible to vote against the bill, and then did so.
Bush made a similar mistake with his comments construed to imply he didn't think we could win the War on Terror, which clearly isn't true, but he stated it in such a way that the media took it and ran with it as a statement of futility.
If someone followed me around 24 hours a day, I know I'd say stupid things too that would be taken out of context and used against me too, but in each of these cases, I think they were just really dumb things to say.
Initial review of these so-called 25 Censored Stories leads me to conclude that most of these are really just opinion pieces or of trivial importance, and I'm amused by the fact that the stories inevitably link to left-wing organizations.
I can provide you with a mountain of links about this stuff, but I'm not going to waste my time because you've already decided this is not a credible theory
I'm open-minded, but your original post paints you as one of the tin-foil hat crowd that spouts nonsense and doesn't back it up with anything meaningful. That type is common around here. I will follow your link.
but the media hasn't even dug THAT far
I'd like some of what you're smoking if you think the media in this country would let Bush skate on something like this. The man can't even eat pretzels without generating media scutiny and ridicule.
Maybe you can show me the strings of lawsuits accusing the government of mass murder and treason following other atrocities?
David Koresh comes to mind... Kent State... The Air Force clipping a gondola in Italy a few years ago... Agent Orange... The Gulf War Syndrome... plenty of lawsuits against the government in these cases... need I go on?
You didn't refute any of my points, just made a weak stab at the air defense one and dismissed the rest as fantasy.
Without citations, that is within my right as a debater. "Gratuitous assertions may be equally gratuitously denied.", etc, etc.
I've seen some of the kind of material you talk about though, and so far it's all seemed completely far-fetched to me. Conspiracies like you claim simply cannot happen in this day and age. Still, I'll review what you talk about and consider it, because unlike most people around here, I do think critically, I am not blinded by ideology, and I am willing to do research to back up what I claim.
If enough voters vote 3rd party and cause a major upset
The closest person to come to that in recent history was Ross "Chicken Man vs. Potato Chip Man" Perot, who won 19% of the vote, but no electoral votes.
I don't think it's mathematically or practically possible for a third party candidate to win in the U.S.
It seems to be IRV or some other alternative is the best bet, but 95% of the office-holders will resist this, since it adversely affects them and their party (Demolican or Republicrat). Look how they handled the dueling press conferences, er, debates.
You can vote your favorite candidate to make a statement, but it's an anonymous statement and it probably won't change the outcome. It's honest, but that's all you get.
I'd love to see a third candidate who's running for reasons other than ego stroking (*cough*Nader*cough*) AND has a chance of breaking the single digit barrier. I'd love to see a third party candidate who has a chance of winning. I think it would stir things up a bit. Of course, it could further Balkanize our already highly polarized country.
There are two Americas. The populous coasts, which go blue and the flyover country which goes red. By population, blue won 2000, by electoral, red squeaked by. By land mass (which doesn't mean anything, but it's interesing to note), red won by about 5 to 1.
You riff because you must. If you were really wrapped up in the movie and enjoying it, it wouldn't occur to you to bust on it. But even good Hollywood movies throw so much riffable stuff in our faces we can't help it.
This isn't true for older films. The cultural differences make it hard not to crack wise. I think "Gone with the Wind" could have been one of the best MST3K episodes ever. I was watching "Metropolis" (the Fritz Lang movie), and an observer would have been surprised to see me laughing out loud at my inner Crow T Robot.
then claimed "nobody ever conceived that airplanes could be used as weapons."
I always thought this was a phony assertion.
Consider that it was easily within the capabilities of domestic air defense (and automatic, standard procedure) to intercept the hijacked planes, but they were instructed to stand down.
Because our history showed that if you let the hijackers land the plane in Cuba or whereever, everyone walks away alive. Or at least the innocent passengers.
By time we knew differently, it was too late. The plane that augered into Pennsylvania shows what would happen if we did know what was planned.
If the Air Force had shot down all four airplanes, regardless of what they appeared to be doing, do you think the public outcry would be anything but just short of open revolution?
Consider that...
Do you have any credible citations for any of these tinfoil hat assertions?
The 9/11 commission, many of whom hold little love for the President didn't seem to state any of these things. Contrary to popular opinion, the odds of a conspiracy succeeding fall exponentially for every additional person involved. Can anyone sane believe that Bush is powerful enough to do this and then prevent his opponents from bringing up these charges? This is complete fantasy.
Consider that there are multiple lawsuits...
And when does anything bad happen in the U.S. that is not followed by a sting of lawsuits for every conceivable reason, no matter how outrageous?
There are many more "irregularities" than those I have raised above...
Your vague uncited statements don't convince me of anything. I'm sorry, but I don't buy the stories in Weekly World News.
Half of Americans believe in horoscopes and a huge chunk of us believe in alien abductions, crystal power, Scientology, the Trilateral Commission, faked Moon landings and any number of unprovable claims. How is this any different?
I agree. The problem is that there are so many people in this country who believe if you talk nice and pat them on the head, they will stop attacking you.
This is not because these people (mostly Democrats) are idiots.
It's because this is how we are in the U.S.. With all the relative chaos of the 2000 election and the intense rancor of the 2004 election season (God forbid the election goes that way again for the sake of the country), it was a peaceful resolution. The Rule of Law was upheld, even amidst the midslinging, lies and FUD. Despite sometimes being blinded by ideology, we are a civilized nation. Republicrats and Demolicans might call each other names and spread vicious rumours, but we don't shoot each other over it. Despite our failings, we are a peace-loving people (I even believe that of the neo-cons, although I know people will argue that). No one (sane) is calling for attacks against our President or his opponents. Politics can be sleazy, slimy, back-stabbing crap, but we're not going to have a Civil War over it.
The problem is that our current enemies are not civilized. They are driven by a mania fueled by self-inflicted poverty and fanatical religious beliefs morphed into blind hatred and a mindless self-destructive bloodthirst. For them, the Crusades never ended. The rest of the world has moved beyond that, and they are still holding a grudge from 800 years ago. There is no negotiation, no reasoning, no compromise.
This is not the American way (or that of almost everyone else in the world), but we can't continue to ignore it.
#1. Terrorist attacks have increased around the world since Bush took office. Far from winning the war against terror, we seem to be losing it (look at our deficit).
That Bush made some very unwise decisions on domestic policies (like co-opting and passing the grotesquely expensive Democrat prescription drug plan), which resulted in a huge deficit has no bearing on the war.
If you attack the someone supporting terrorists, of course they are going to strike back. The worst thing that can happen from their point of view (besides Bush being reelected) is for Iraq to hold free elections, because the Iraqi people will not choose a government that supports the extremists. This is why they are fighting so hard to prevent it.
Yet Iraq did not "screw with the U.S.". Rather, it appears that we did so to control their oil.
I mistyped. I meant "Screw with the U.N.". Since the U.N. were letting Saddam walk all over them, and it's clear that resolution #1441 was as meaningless as the almost 2 dozen before it, the U.S. stepped in and took care of things. I would agree with critics that the timing was bad, but I also believe that nothing was going to change. Saddam was bluffing, hiding and evading. Nothing conclusive would have ever been decided on the basis of U.N. inspectors, who were only back in Iraq thanks to President Bush.
Saddam was in material violation of #1441, but Kofi Annan and the Spineless Bureaucrat World Patrol apparently had no intentions of backing up threats with anything but more threats, despite resolutions to the contrary.
If the war was for oil, why am I paying more for gas now?! Wouldn't Bush have caused gas prices to lower if he could, since that would clearly help him win re-election? I want my cheap gas!
Rather, wait until Iraq elects a Theocracy.
Like they had prior to Saddam Hussein? (Not.) I'm guessing they would go the route that Turkey has gone. You know Turkey, right? Muslim democracy, no support for terrorism? Modern country? Welcomed member of the community of nations? They're our ally even even they did screw us, which is one of the reasons Iraq didn't go as well as it could have. Given a choice, people are not going to put a bunch of 10th-century barbarians in charge.
No yellow cake was in Iraq.
Here's where I differ from the spittle-producing bickering ideology-spewing/. masses. I know what I'm talking about. Sit back and enjoy some tasty facts.
Fire up your broadband, because this is huge (70+ MB). It's the Duefler report, that everyone cites, but no one wants to actually read.
Here are the relevant excerpts for the bandwidth impaired:
page 189:
ISG judges that Iraq has not worked on nuclear weapons design since 1991. ISG investigated Iraq's nuclear weapon design and component manufacture capabilities through interviews with scientists and other government employees, site visits of historically- associated Iraq nuclear weapon facilities, and exploitation of captured documents.
but, we see further that...
page 203:
Since Operation Iraqi Freedom, two scientists from Iraq's pre-1991 nuclear weapons program have emerged to provide ISG with uranium enrichment technology and components, which they kept hidden from inspectors.
...
The former head of Iraq's pre-1991 centrifuge program also retained prohibited documents and components in apparent violation of the Regime's directives. Though this activity was isolated, it also had the potential to contribute to a possible restart of Iraq's uranium enrichment programs.
I live in the D.C. area too. I'm just saying that the sniper was just like any mass murderer, just really good at it.
But what about those who don't have internet access?
Well, they'll have to do what we all had to do 10+ years ago. I guess you think they should put PSA's on during "Temptation Island" or something. That'll go over real well with the mouth-breathers. You could cause as much damage from mindless panic than a real attack.
Your examples are sort of valid, but terrorism is usually associated with an agenda, and these weren't. Both of these were instances of some lone nutcase or small number of nutcases running around trying to cause harm for kicks. By that argument the Unabomber, Son of Sam, Ted Bundy, Morgana the Kissing Bandit, or El Barto could be considered terrorists.
I wouldn't say W is doing such a great job or the DoHS.
The bureaucracy is clearly lumbering to a slow start, and I think they've really dropped the ball in some aspects (like border security or cargo inspection). However, the lack of WMD's being set off in the U.S. counts for a lot in my book, because you know there are thousands or millions of Muslims that are having wet dreams about accomplishing just that.
Do you know what to do in case a Nuke goes off near you?
Before or after I'm vaporized...?
I don't... you would think they would set up guides for each situation they can think of and publish them. Last I heard I was to buy plastic and duct tape. i.e. duck and cover.
Well, let's see.../me goes off and Googles for five seconds:
Good reply, and I don't disagree with you on most of your points.
I personally think a better approach is a strong intelligence and home-land security community working on the problem behind the scenes.
That's being done. Please recall that we had a 25-year history of cutting intelligence, particularly HumInt. Senator Kerry was strongly behind this. There is much more going on than is generally known simply because keeping mum on anti-terrorism successes is often necessary to maintain security and integrity of the operations. You can only blame Bush's Administration for 9/11 if you also blame Clinton's. Clinton has the additional culpability of decimate our Army's preparedness through military cuts.
As far as being glad the shit is going down in Iraq rather than over here, that's pretty sad. Is that a new justification for the un-justifiable war?
What bothers me is that there have been no new justifications for the war in Iraq. Bush stated all these justifications clearly before the war, he just overemphasized the WMD issues because as we all know, the public goes for simple explanations over more detailed ones and the (faulty) intelligence indicated that this was a home run. "Bringing the war to the terorrists" and "Changing the face of the Middle East" were all over Bush's speeches in 2001 - 2003.
His reasons were stated clearly:
1. WMDs in Iraq (overemphasized like I stated), proven out in the fact that David Kay, et al, concluded the desire was there and no one seems to mention the 500 tons of yellow-cake uranium that can be purified into enough fuel for 140+ bombs. Saddam was kissing upto (and bribing) France, Russia, et al, to get sanctions lifted so he could get back to that. None of this has been contradicted but confirmed by recent reports.
2. Put political pressure on Iran by surrounding it with two liberated countries with newly-created democracies. Bush has failed (IMO) to take the next step by calling on Iranians (a la Reagan to the Polish) to rise up and overthrow their leaders, but that's been his intention for years.
3. Setting an example that if you screw with the U.S., we'll kick your ass. Seems to have paid off since Libya has suddenly come to Jesus and is disarming.
4. Doing the U.N.'s work for them, despite its corruption and weakness. Clearly U.N. Resolutions aren't worth the paper they're written on. The U.S. felt it could not wait for the U.N. to back up its threats because after 12 years it had proven it never would. And why should it since so many were on the take from the Oil for Food program?
5. Destroying terrorist training camps and other operations in Iraq. Recall the first thing we bombed in Iraq in 2003 were terrorist training camps. The Democrats have admitted in the debates that al-Qaeda is in 60 countries and yet somehow it's not in Iraq, a country with undeniable terrorist ties. Plus now that Saddam is no longer rewarding the Palestinian suicide terrorists, those attacks have decreased markedly.
All of this was clearly stated before 2003, it's just that Bush made the mistake of stressing the WMD issue more. His opponents have conveniently forgotten all this. His opponents, particularly the Senior Swimming Instructor from Massachusetts and the Democratic Presidential Candidate, were calling for the elimination of Saddam prior to 2003, even unilaterally. Yes, Senator Kerry was calling for possible unilateral, preemptive removal of Saddam. Of course, now he requires a "global test", which can't stop us from doing anything although that contradicts the meaning of the word "test". How can you have a test you cannot fail? Furthermore, when the "global test" was passed clearly and almost unanimously in 1991, Kerry voted against it for no reason that anyone, perhaps even the Senator himself, cannot explain.
Stir up some hornets' nest in some country we don't care about to keep us safe at home?
That's OK, they probably stole it from somewhere else. It's an old joke.
The fact of the matter is the FBI and other counter-terrorism agencies in the U.S. have prevented terrorist attacks. Right now al-Qaeda is suffering from a credibility problem among the nutcases in the world. They made several smaller hits around the world (Madrid, Indonesia, etc), but they haven't pulled off anything in the U.S. since 9/11. Hopefully they never will, but not for lack of trying.
This isn't proof that Bush's Doctrine is working, because that is proving a negative, (i.e., you will only know for sure if it fails), but right now the hornets are swarming in Iraq and Afghanistan, and among us Americans, I'm glad it's over there.
You have got to be kidding! Clearly you haven't heard all the things he's said over the years. I wouldn't believe this guy if he told me the sky was blue.
Stop drinking the Kool-Aid and go do some real research. Put your Democratic talking notes up and actually look at what he's said.
Consistent - Changing your position according to the views of the person you are arguing with, the issue's standing in the polls, or the phase of the moon
Strong - Ceding decision-making power to hostile, corrupt and cowardly foreigners
Rich - Anyone who pays taxes
Smart - Dissing your wife to talk about your dead mother
Germany, for one. Germany is a good location as a staging area, etc, but we are not defending them against the Soviet Union any more. I think it's quite reasonable to pull out some troops and redeploy them elsewhere.
I'm betting the same is true for a lot of other locations. Now that we are actually having to fight wars, it probably makes sense to not have so many troops sitting around in so many places when it's not critical for them to be there.
The other thing I understand is that there are more troops available if they could be made ready. One of the problems in the last 10 years was that many of divisions were not really ready to take action if it was needed. The 150,000 in Iraq are actually a fairly small fraction of our total forces (about 11%). I suspect there are a lot of people we can get over there without having to recruit or conscript large numbers of soldiers.
I think the problem is that most everyone interested enough to get involved in politics is blindingly biased to begin with.
I am biased, but I try very hard to look at things objectively. I can see plenty of shenanigans starting that look like they're coming from both sides, but no indication that the parties themselves are behind it.
There are similar stories of intimidation from numerous Republican campaign office being vandalized or stolen from. There are insinuations that the unions are involved, and since the unions are a de facto arm of the Democratic party, and not above getting their hands dirty roughing people up, that's not implausible.
What's even scarier is that the Democrats are clearly gearing up to make a huge legal morass out of this election before it even happens. I think the best thing that can happen in this country right now is a resounding victory one way or the other. (And you know where I stand from my sig.)
Have you ever used Notes? It's the most hideous Windows application I've ever used. It doesn't follow most Windows UI conventions or standards and just seems to be an inconsistent mish-mash of poorly integrated apps, each of which is itself awful and together are even worse.
Everyone wants MS to remove things like CD-burning, Media Player, IE etc because it is anti-competitive and now you WANT THEM to build MORE APPS IN??
I don't. I just want them to build in stuff that doesn't suck.
I always thought this bundling issue was just an excuse for Netscape to whine because they couldn't write a good browser (or more specifically, that they had a good browser and MS'ed it up by bloating it beyond usability). No one complains that Windows comes with WordPad, which as far as I'm concerned is all the word processor I need.
Slashdot Mirror
spent half his life under the influence of various and sundry illegitimate mind altering drugs
And there's no room in the world for someone to reform himself?
true social conservativism by championing an unjust war
Depends on whom you ask.
being the governor who killed more prisoners than any in the history of the United States
That's a valid point, although most conservatives are pro-capital punishment.
funding abortions of relatives and past girlfriends
Does he do that now? Or is this something like the drinking and drugs that he gave up when he realized it was wrong, and then amended his life.
neos his fiscal policy is not his, it's dicated by the corporations in the back pulling on the puppet strings
Just like liberals are all controlled by the unions and the trial lawyers?
No, Bush is neither the social conservative he wants you to think he is, nor is he the fiscal liberal many think he is.
Is he the perfect social conservative candidate? Hardly, but the alternative is the perfect social liberal candidate, despite his claims to the contrary. I would bet Kerry would be for gay marriage if he weren't running for President.
Is Bush a fiscal liberal? Not really, because he failed at the "tax" part of "tax and spend".
I've been following electoral-vote.com for weeks... two weeks ago it looked like today. A week ago the electoral projects were almost exactly reversed from what they are today. A week from now? Who knows.
This is like measuring jelly with a caliper. It's extremely precise, but what can you learn from it.
Cheney is Grand Moff Tarkin, Clinton is Darth Vader, Karl Rove is Emperor Palpatine,Bush is Jar Jar Binks,Beware the WTO.
Hey, this is fun, but I'd make some changes. I won't even try to be partisan about it.
Bush is Luke Skywalker. Clinton is Han Solo, no doubt about it. John Kerry is C3PO... wait, wait, John Kerry is that two-headed announcer played by Greg Proops. No, I think C3PO is a good fit. John Edwards is the little muppet who sits next to Jabba and laughs at everything. Or maybe John Edwards is an Ewok.
Rumsfeld is Count Dooku. Howard Dean was one of the R2 units that got shot off of Queen Amidala's space ship while trying to repair it. Al Gore was that guy who wandered aimlessly around the Star Destroyer bridge with a computer stuck in his head, until he lost in 2000 and became Chewbacca. Ronald Reagan was Ben Kenobi.
But, Dick Cheney is Grand Moff Tarkin... that's a perfect fit.
Oh, and Hillary Clinton is Darth Vader.
I think a truly popular candidate running on a socially conservative, fiscally liberal agenda could well decimate the political system in America
We've already got one. His name is President Bush... and, well, he's probably going to win.
It wasn't a fair characterization (Stockdale wasn't retarded or senile)
No, but he was an idiot to think people wouldn't paint him that way. He made it worse with his funny but trivializing comment about his hearing aid.
It was the same with Kerry's "I voted for it before I voted against it." quote. I immediately knew what he meant by that, but it was still incredibly stupid to say because we've been predictably and relentlessly beat about the head and shoulders with it for months.
If he wanted to look consistent, maybe he should explain why he said it would be irresponsible to vote against the bill, and then did so.
Bush made a similar mistake with his comments construed to imply he didn't think we could win the War on Terror, which clearly isn't true, but he stated it in such a way that the media took it and ran with it as a statement of futility.
If someone followed me around 24 hours a day, I know I'd say stupid things too that would be taken out of context and used against me too, but in each of these cases, I think they were just really dumb things to say.
Initial review of these so-called 25 Censored Stories leads me to conclude that most of these are really just opinion pieces or of trivial importance, and I'm amused by the fact that the stories inevitably link to left-wing organizations.
Yeah, this looks very objective.
I can provide you with a mountain of links about this stuff, but I'm not going to waste my time because you've already decided this is not a credible theory
I'm open-minded, but your original post paints you as one of the tin-foil hat crowd that spouts nonsense and doesn't back it up with anything meaningful. That type is common around here. I will follow your link.
but the media hasn't even dug THAT far
I'd like some of what you're smoking if you think the media in this country would let Bush skate on something like this. The man can't even eat pretzels without generating media scutiny and ridicule.
Maybe you can show me the strings of lawsuits accusing the government of mass murder and treason following other atrocities?
David Koresh comes to mind... Kent State... The Air Force clipping a gondola in Italy a few years ago... Agent Orange... The Gulf War Syndrome... plenty of lawsuits against the government in these cases... need I go on?
You didn't refute any of my points, just made a weak stab at the air defense one and dismissed the rest as fantasy.
Without citations, that is within my right as a debater. "Gratuitous assertions may be equally gratuitously denied.", etc, etc.
I've seen some of the kind of material you talk about though, and so far it's all seemed completely far-fetched to me. Conspiracies like you claim simply cannot happen in this day and age. Still, I'll review what you talk about and consider it, because unlike most people around here, I do think critically, I am not blinded by ideology, and I am willing to do research to back up what I claim.
If enough voters vote 3rd party and cause a major upset
The closest person to come to that in recent history was Ross "Chicken Man vs. Potato Chip Man" Perot, who won 19% of the vote, but no electoral votes.
I don't think it's mathematically or practically possible for a third party candidate to win in the U.S.
It seems to be IRV or some other alternative is the best bet, but 95% of the office-holders will resist this, since it adversely affects them and their party (Demolican or Republicrat). Look how they handled the dueling press conferences, er, debates.
You can vote your favorite candidate to make a statement, but it's an anonymous statement and it probably won't change the outcome. It's honest, but that's all you get.
I'd love to see a third candidate who's running for reasons other than ego stroking (*cough*Nader*cough*) AND has a chance of breaking the single digit barrier. I'd love to see a third party candidate who has a chance of winning. I think it would stir things up a bit. Of course, it could further Balkanize our already highly polarized country.
There are two Americas. The populous coasts, which go blue and the flyover country which goes red. By population, blue won 2000, by electoral, red squeaked by. By land mass (which doesn't mean anything, but it's interesing to note), red won by about 5 to 1.
I blame MST3K
You riff because you must. If you were really wrapped up in the movie and enjoying it, it wouldn't occur to you to bust on it. But even good Hollywood movies throw so much riffable stuff in our faces we can't help it.
This isn't true for older films. The cultural differences make it hard not to crack wise. I think "Gone with the Wind" could have been one of the best MST3K episodes ever.
I was watching "Metropolis" (the Fritz Lang movie), and an observer would have been surprised to see me laughing out loud at my inner Crow T Robot.
Anthrax in the mail?
Perhaps. But, since when did a terrorist attack occur that groups weren't falling all over each other rushing to claim responsibility?
then claimed "nobody ever conceived that airplanes could be used as weapons."
I always thought this was a phony assertion.
Consider that it was easily within the capabilities of domestic air defense (and automatic, standard procedure) to intercept the hijacked planes, but they were instructed to stand down.
Because our history showed that if you let the hijackers land the plane in Cuba or whereever, everyone walks away alive. Or at least the innocent passengers.
By time we knew differently, it was too late. The plane that augered into Pennsylvania shows what would happen if we did know what was planned.
If the Air Force had shot down all four airplanes, regardless of what they appeared to be doing, do you think the public outcry would be anything but just short of open revolution?
Consider that...
Do you have any credible citations for any of these tinfoil hat assertions?
The 9/11 commission, many of whom hold little love for the President didn't seem to state any of these things. Contrary to popular opinion, the odds of a conspiracy succeeding fall exponentially for every additional person involved. Can anyone sane believe that Bush is powerful enough to do this and then prevent his opponents from bringing up these charges? This is complete fantasy.
Consider that there are multiple lawsuits...
And when does anything bad happen in the U.S. that is not followed by a sting of lawsuits for every conceivable reason, no matter how outrageous?
There are many more "irregularities" than those I have raised above...
Your vague uncited statements don't convince me of anything. I'm sorry, but I don't buy the stories in Weekly World News.
Half of Americans believe in horoscopes and a huge chunk of us believe in alien abductions, crystal power, Scientology, the Trilateral Commission, faked Moon landings and any number of unprovable claims. How is this any different?
I agree. The problem is that there are so many people in this country who believe if you talk nice and pat them on the head, they will stop attacking you.
This is not because these people (mostly Democrats) are idiots.
It's because this is how we are in the U.S.. With all the relative chaos of the 2000 election and the intense rancor of the 2004 election season (God forbid the election goes that way again for the sake of the country), it was a peaceful resolution. The Rule of Law was upheld, even amidst the midslinging, lies and FUD. Despite sometimes being blinded by ideology, we are a civilized nation. Republicrats and Demolicans might call each other names and spread vicious rumours, but we don't shoot each other over it. Despite our failings, we are a peace-loving people (I even believe that of the neo-cons, although I know people will argue that). No one (sane) is calling for attacks against our President or his opponents. Politics can be sleazy, slimy, back-stabbing crap, but we're not going to have a Civil War over it.
The problem is that our current enemies are not civilized. They are driven by a mania fueled by self-inflicted poverty and fanatical religious beliefs morphed into blind hatred and a mindless self-destructive bloodthirst. For them, the Crusades never ended. The rest of the world has moved beyond that, and they are still holding a grudge from 800 years ago. There is no negotiation, no reasoning, no compromise.
This is not the American way (or that of almost everyone else in the world), but we can't continue to ignore it.
That Bush made some very unwise decisions on domestic policies (like co-opting and passing the grotesquely expensive Democrat prescription drug plan), which resulted in a huge deficit has no bearing on the war.
If you attack the someone supporting terrorists, of course they are going to strike back. The worst thing that can happen from their point of view (besides Bush being reelected) is for Iraq to hold free elections, because the Iraqi people will not choose a government that supports the extremists. This is why they are fighting so hard to prevent it.
Yet Iraq did not "screw with the U.S.". Rather, it appears that we did so to control their oil.
I mistyped. I meant "Screw with the U.N.". Since the U.N. were letting Saddam walk all over them, and it's clear that resolution #1441 was as meaningless as the almost 2 dozen before it, the U.S. stepped in and took care of things.
I would agree with critics that the timing was bad, but I also believe that nothing was going to change. Saddam was bluffing, hiding and evading. Nothing conclusive would have ever been decided on the basis of U.N. inspectors, who were only back in Iraq thanks to President Bush.
Saddam was in material violation of #1441, but Kofi Annan and the Spineless Bureaucrat World Patrol apparently had no intentions of backing up threats with anything but more threats, despite resolutions to the contrary.
If the war was for oil, why am I paying more for gas now?! Wouldn't Bush have caused gas prices to lower if he could, since that would clearly help him win re-election? I want my cheap gas!
Rather, wait until Iraq elects a Theocracy.
Like they had prior to Saddam Hussein? (Not.) I'm guessing they would go the route that Turkey has gone. You know Turkey, right? Muslim democracy, no support for terrorism? Modern country? Welcomed member of the community of nations? They're our ally even even they did screw us, which is one of the reasons Iraq didn't go as well as it could have. Given a choice, people are not going to put a bunch of 10th-century barbarians in charge.
No yellow cake was in Iraq.
Here's where I differ from the spittle-producing bickering ideology-spewing
Fire up your broadband, because this is huge (70+ MB). It's the Duefler report, that everyone cites, but no one wants to actually read.
http://www.foia.cia.gov/duelfer/Iraqs_WMD_Vol2.pdf
Here are the relevant excerpts for the bandwidth impaired:
page 189:
but, we see further that...
page 203:
but, going b
I live in the D.C. area too. I'm just saying that the sniper was just like any mass murderer, just really good at it.
But what about those who don't have internet access?
Well, they'll have to do what we all had to do 10+ years ago. I guess you think they should put PSA's on during "Temptation Island" or something. That'll go over real well with the mouth-breathers. You could cause as much damage from mindless panic than a real attack.
Your examples are sort of valid, but terrorism is usually associated with an agenda, and these weren't. Both of these were instances of some lone nutcase or small number of nutcases running around trying to cause harm for kicks. By that argument the Unabomber, Son of Sam, Ted Bundy, Morgana the Kissing Bandit, or El Barto could be considered terrorists.
/me goes off and Googles for five seconds:
l and+security+what+to+do+in+a+nuclear+attack&start= 0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=o rg.mozilla:en-US:official
I wouldn't say W is doing such a great job or the DoHS.
The bureaucracy is clearly lumbering to a slow start, and I think they've really dropped the ball in some aspects (like border security or cargo inspection). However, the lack of WMD's being set off in the U.S. counts for a lot in my book, because you know there are thousands or millions of Muslims that are having wet dreams about accomplishing just that.
Do you know what to do in case a Nuke goes off near you?
Before or after I'm vaporized...?
I don't... you would think they would set up guides for each situation they can think of and publish them. Last I heard I was to buy plastic and duct tape. i.e. duck and cover.
Well, let's see...
http://www.google.com/search?q=department+of+home
and I found this helpful link:
http://www.ready.gov/get_informed.html
I know you're upset, but that complaint is just sad.
OTOH They did do that handy color chart. I feel much safer with that around.
Yeah, the color code was really dumb. You notice they just completely stopped talking about it about six months ago.
Good reply, and I don't disagree with you on most of your points.
I personally think a better approach is a strong intelligence and home-land security community working on the problem behind the scenes.
That's being done. Please recall that we had a 25-year history of cutting intelligence, particularly HumInt. Senator Kerry was strongly behind this. There is much more going on than is generally known simply because keeping mum on anti-terrorism successes is often necessary to maintain security and integrity of the operations. You can only blame Bush's Administration for 9/11 if you also blame Clinton's. Clinton has the additional culpability of decimate our Army's preparedness through military cuts.
As far as being glad the shit is going down in Iraq rather than over here, that's pretty sad. Is that a new justification for the un-justifiable war?
What bothers me is that there have been no new justifications for the war in Iraq. Bush stated all these justifications clearly before the war, he just overemphasized the WMD issues because as we all know, the public goes for simple explanations over more detailed ones and the (faulty) intelligence indicated that this was a home run. "Bringing the war to the terorrists" and "Changing the face of the Middle East" were all over Bush's speeches in 2001 - 2003.
His reasons were stated clearly:
1. WMDs in Iraq (overemphasized like I stated), proven out in the fact that David Kay, et al, concluded the desire was there and no one seems to mention the 500 tons of yellow-cake uranium that can be purified into enough fuel for 140+ bombs. Saddam was kissing upto (and bribing) France, Russia, et al, to get sanctions lifted so he could get back to that. None of this has been contradicted but confirmed by recent reports.
2. Put political pressure on Iran by surrounding it with two liberated countries with newly-created democracies. Bush has failed (IMO) to take the next step by calling on Iranians (a la Reagan to the Polish) to rise up and overthrow their leaders, but that's been his intention for years.
3. Setting an example that if you screw with the U.S., we'll kick your ass. Seems to have paid off since Libya has suddenly come to Jesus and is disarming.
4. Doing the U.N.'s work for them, despite its corruption and weakness. Clearly U.N. Resolutions aren't worth the paper they're written on. The U.S. felt it could not wait for the U.N. to back up its threats because after 12 years it had proven it never would. And why should it since so many were on the take from the Oil for Food program?
5. Destroying terrorist training camps and other operations in Iraq. Recall the first thing we bombed in Iraq in 2003 were terrorist training camps. The Democrats have admitted in the debates that al-Qaeda is in 60 countries and yet somehow it's not in Iraq, a country with undeniable terrorist ties. Plus now that Saddam is no longer rewarding the Palestinian suicide terrorists, those attacks have decreased markedly.
All of this was clearly stated before 2003, it's just that Bush made the mistake of stressing the WMD issue more. His opponents have conveniently forgotten all this. His opponents, particularly the Senior Swimming Instructor from Massachusetts and the Democratic Presidential Candidate, were calling for the elimination of Saddam prior to 2003, even unilaterally. Yes, Senator Kerry was calling for possible unilateral, preemptive removal of Saddam. Of course, now he requires a "global test", which can't stop us from doing anything although that contradicts the meaning of the word "test". How can you have a test you cannot fail? Furthermore, when the "global test" was passed clearly and almost unanimously in 1991, Kerry voted against it for no reason that anyone, perhaps even the Senator himself, cannot explain.
Stir up some hornets' nest in some country we don't care about to keep us safe at home?
You remove hornets by destroying their nest
That's OK, they probably stole it from somewhere else. It's an old joke.
The fact of the matter is the FBI and other counter-terrorism agencies in the U.S. have prevented terrorist attacks. Right now al-Qaeda is suffering from a credibility problem among the nutcases in the world. They made several smaller hits around the world (Madrid, Indonesia, etc), but they haven't pulled off anything in the U.S. since 9/11. Hopefully they never will, but not for lack of trying.
This isn't proof that Bush's Doctrine is working, because that is proving a negative, (i.e., you will only know for sure if it fails), but right now the hornets are swarming in Iraq and Afghanistan, and among us Americans, I'm glad it's over there.
You have got to be kidding! Clearly you haven't heard all the things he's said over the years. I wouldn't believe this guy if he told me the sky was blue.
Stop drinking the Kool-Aid and go do some real research. Put your Democratic talking notes up and actually look at what he's said.
We here on ./ care, so I guess the answer is "No".
Don't forget:
Consistent - Changing your position according to the views of the person you are arguing with, the issue's standing in the polls, or the phase of the moon
Strong - Ceding decision-making power to hostile, corrupt and cowardly foreigners
Rich - Anyone who pays taxes
Smart - Dissing your wife to talk about your dead mother
And yet people still choose to use it. Compared to Notes, Office is a dream (and I hate Office, but at least it's usable (mostly)).
The biggest irony was when IBM acquired Lotus because all of IBM's big application software is just as bad as Notes.
Germany, for one. Germany is a good location as a staging area, etc, but we are not defending them against the Soviet Union any more. I think it's quite reasonable to pull out some troops and redeploy them elsewhere.
I'm betting the same is true for a lot of other locations. Now that we are actually having to fight wars, it probably makes sense to not have so many troops sitting around in so many places when it's not critical for them to be there.
The other thing I understand is that there are more troops available if they could be made ready. One of the problems in the last 10 years was that many of divisions were not really ready to take action if it was needed. The 150,000 in Iraq are actually a fairly small fraction of our total forces (about 11%). I suspect there are a lot of people we can get over there without having to recruit or conscript large numbers of soldiers.
I think the problem is that most everyone interested enough to get involved in politics is blindingly biased to begin with.
I am biased, but I try very hard to look at things objectively. I can see plenty of shenanigans starting that look like they're coming from both sides, but no indication that the parties themselves are behind it.
There are similar stories of intimidation from numerous Republican campaign office being vandalized or stolen from. There are insinuations that the unions are involved, and since the unions are a de facto arm of the Democratic party, and not above getting their hands dirty roughing people up, that's not implausible.
What's even scarier is that the Democrats are clearly gearing up to make a huge legal morass out of this election before it even happens. I think the best thing that can happen in this country right now is a resounding victory one way or the other. (And you know where I stand from my sig.)
Have you ever used Notes? It's the most hideous Windows application I've ever used. It doesn't follow most Windows UI conventions or standards and just seems to be an inconsistent mish-mash of poorly integrated apps, each of which is itself awful and together are even worse.
You mean something like Lotus Notes, but doesn't look and feel like mid-80's software developed by the Soviets?
Everyone wants MS to remove things like CD-burning, Media Player, IE etc because it is anti-competitive and now you WANT THEM to build MORE APPS IN??
I don't. I just want them to build in stuff that doesn't suck.
I always thought this bundling issue was just an excuse for Netscape to whine because they couldn't write a good browser (or more specifically, that they had a good browser and MS'ed it up by bloating it beyond usability). No one complains that Windows comes with WordPad, which as far as I'm concerned is all the word processor I need.