Umm, wouldn't a shorter lifespan effectively speed up evolution of the species in the long run? And in the short run, since females incubate their young in the ingested blood, wouldn't a shorter lifespan lead to more breeding and thus more blood consumption?
In D&D, the Dungeon Master isn't the leader. He's the opposition. A dungeon is a kind of prison: http://thesaurus.com/browse/dungeon So, what is a warden, if not the master of a dungeon?
"Some people are opposed to the death penalty because it makes the state into a murderer. I'm opposed to the prison system, because it turns the state into a gay dungeonmaster."
-Emo Philips
People with autism-spectrum disorders are well demonstrated to be able to achieve hyper-normal ability in specific areas of motor skills. I had a 12 year old kung-fu student with Aspergers, and his formwork was really amazing (although he lost his edge when he came into contact with an opponent). I had other students for longer and with seemingly stronger basic ability who never *got* the forms the way this boy did. Now he's 17 and spends all his time playing X-Box.
So, did he cheat, or not? Maybe, but if he did, Microsoft really ought to give him another chance. The real problem here is that they refuse to slap him on the wrist and then clear the tag. Whether he's autistic or not, he's 11 YEARS OLD. A "no strikes" rule before permanently labeling a kid a cheater is really draconian way to deal with a child.
This isn't a normal year... we're at solar minimum, with greater than average cloud cover over most areas, in winter. Basically, sans ice age, solar panels will never receive less energy than they do right now.
There are tons of webcam apps that record images only when the image changes. If you have a webcam in the bezel of your laptop, you can use it to record everyone who enters your cube, or even looks into it, when you aren't around. Or you can just buy an external webcam. Anyway, just run it whenever you aren't in there, and spool the images to a remote location on the network. First, you can see who is scoping your stuff, and then you can catch them in the act if that actually do run off with it. Hell, barring actual theft, it may just be fun to see what people do in your cube when you aren't around... or it may be chilling and paranoia inducing. Main disadvantage of security culture? A propagation of fear and fear-mongering.
The story has already been written and published. It clearly follows the Rip Van Winkle storyline. All stories are prior art, because none is original in its broad strokes.
OK, Mr. Anonymous Coward: What was idiotic or ignorant about my post? Do you have any points to make? Or maybe you'd like to deconstruct one of mine? Feel free. But disliking what I have said does not make your opinion valid. You have to prove it.
Don't say anything if you have nothing to say. If you don't have any ammo, don't pull out your gun. If you want to pick a fight, be prepared to swing. Otherwise you are just some loudmouth standing across the street calling names as your audience walks away. Or looking stupid and whining while I come back and stomp a mudhole in your ass.
BTW: My score here is only 1, so maybe you should try again to figure out how to work those filters. And stop lying.
The worst thing about the internet is text formatting?
Hmmm... I would have thought the worst things were the poorly informed opinions most people have, their deadly committment to those poorly informed opinions, and the average inability to spell common words.
But I will forget all about those, now that I have heard the truth. It's the text formatting.
What precludes the New York Times from judging what torture is? Do you have a judgment on the definition of torture? It seem that you must, because you seem to disagree with the definition that you perceive the New York Times to have. What makes you qualified to judge a definition of torture? What makes you qualified to say anything about it?
(I'll give you a hint: It's your freedom of speech. You share this qualification to judge and speak with the New York Times.)
The Declaration of Independence. http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdoc s/declaration.h tml As it is the foundational document for our system of government, I heartily recommend reading it.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
Unless I am mistaken, The United States has not signed any international treaty that would make our treatment of Guantanamo prisoners legal under international law.
Where did you hear of these treaties? Can you tell me the names of them?
1: Many of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay were not captured on the battlefield. Many were arrested in the US and have been detained without trial, and without charges. There is no public record of what they are being held for. Many are being released after months and years of detention and torture, it having been decided that they had done nothing. Imagine that: You are arrested having done no wrong, You are arrested without you or your family being told why. You are detained and tortured for 26 months. Then, you are released without apology, or comment.
2: The Geneva Convention specifically applies to enemies captured on the battlefield, and to nobody else. Why would it not appliy to enemies in this conflict? Who did you think it applied to?
3: If we invade someone else's country, shouldn't we expect some of them to resist? Would it be ok for us to resist if foreign soldiers invade our country? If we do so, is it right for them to detain and torture us without trial if we are captured?
Hmmm. There is a military base there, and it is US territory, and US territorrial laws are in effect there. Where did you get your information? I have heard it differently.
You can always tell someone who is unsure of his situation when observations of it provoke such a response. Pay attention: Things look differently from other perspectives, and a glimpse from outside is worth at least a moment's reflection.
Some public services are necessary in civilized society, like the fire department and the police and like welfare and education. They all are there to alleviate unforseen problems that arise from the normal business of having a society.
When you have a society, some people are going to do better than others. Some people's houses will burn, others will not. Some people will be the victims of crime, others will not. We accept that. However, we need not let the house burn. We can form a fire brigade, and all the members of the society can pitch in to prevent individual disasters, which in turn prevents the individual disatser from becoming a general disaster, such as has happened in history with the Chicago Fire of 1905, or the Great London Fire, and many others.
Some people will suffer setbacks that prevent them from competing economically. People who are not doing well can get into a track from which they will not escape without assistance. This could occur due to an unforeseen accident, the loss of an uninsured home to flood or other disaster, injury or other medical need, or just a string of poor luck.
If a person remains in a depressed economic track for a long time, they will become desperate, and will become a destabilizing influence on society. We tend to put the poor in bad housing in bad neighborhoods. The civic life that develops is not conducive to success. Petty and violent crimes are committed by the desperate, not those with plenty.
By helping people who have fallen into an increased need category, we create and environment where people want to take part in the health of their country.
All civilization is welfare, on a basic level. When you call the cops or the fire department, that is welfare. That is a service provided to you by the state, in the interest of developing a stable and prosperous society. When you drive on a road, that is welfare. When you send your kids to public school, that's welfare too.
Without basic services, civilization crumbles, without fail.
Our nation has joined a handful of wealthy, first world nations that subsidize a college education to their citizens. Because we already do not fund our university system as well as other nations, we are gradually losing our standing as the world's innovation center for technological development. If we remove university education funding altogether, soon we will not have the skills to compete in the global marketplace, and we will rapidly lose our entire economic base. It is already happening.
The current neoconservative platform, if fully implemented, would rapidly reduce our nation to a third world country.
Please, take some basic political science classes, and get some education in the basic functions of society. We don't expect people that have never been exposed to a scripting language to be able to suddenly write code, and yet we somehow expect our voters to be able to make decisions about complex political systems without any education in the workings of them.
A little more education could help you to develop your political ideas, and you might begin to see that the current situation is a lot more complex and less wholesome than it appears to you on the surface.
Democrats are good for the economy, Republicans are good for the very wealthy. We end up in this cycle, where the Dems build a thriving economy, and then the Repubs come in and give all the money to the very wealthy, thus destroying the economy. Once the economy is utterly wrecked, we elect a Democrat, and things start to rebuild.
This time, we are really in trouble though: The banks that lend us all that money are saying they aren't going to let us get over 8 trillion dollars in the hole. And right now we are at 7.4 trillion. If we meet that threshold, the whole house of cards comes down, and our economy does what happened to the Russians in the 80's. Our time at the top will be done.
Given the anger that everyone in the world has for us right now, I must say I am a little worried.
Don't forget the western seaboard. We voted for Kerry too. Oh, and the great lakes region. Pretty much all the states that produce any economic power in this country voted for Kerry. Except Texas.
I don't know what your values might be. I do know that your candidate has built the biggest deficit our country has ever had, on track to get much, much larger. Bigger even than that of his father and Reagan, the previous recordholders.
Who is only president to balance the budget in the last 35 years?
Clinton. Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility.
Good point. I hadn't thought of the disbursement of my hard won liberal dollars supporting programs in states filled with redneck welfare queens. That's ironic. Maybe the "blue" states can stage a strike to show the reds where their bread is buttered.
Agreed. Defense contractors are the scum of the earth. Not only do they make things that kill others, but they sell weapons indiscriminately to whoever can shell out the cash, regardless of the use to which they will be put.
Defcon saleman: "Can I make a buck on your upcoming act of genocide? Deal!"
Worst of all, they get sweetheart contracts with my government, so that I have to pay for activity which I find to be abhorrent. Those weapons kill a lot more people than abortion, and yet we see righties lining up to support the murder machine, right after they talk about "affirming the sanctity of life."
Please. Do what you feel you must, but spare us your insipid hypocrisy.
You don't _know_ anything of the sort. You believe, as the carefully crafted advertising was meant to make you. But knowing would not even be possible. How could one _know_ what Bush thinks, whatever you think about his honesty?
You seem to express a feeling of pseudo-religious zeal for a man that would send you to die for nothing but his pride and profits without ever taking a second look at you.
You say you have a logical reason for your position, but you don't say what it is. Sounds familiar; I think someone was talking about banned weapons or something, but also couldn't produce the goods. Want to buy a bridge?
BTW: Kerry did almost win. The republican ticket exceeded the democratic ticket by only a few percentage points of the tabulated votes in the popular election. Once you realize the lengths to which the republicans went to throw out minority votes and those of other likely democratic voters, it is easy to see that it could easily have gone the other way. You just have to engage your thinking part. You are studying engineering; you should be able to tell the difference between a few percentage points and "there is no way in hell that Kerry would have won, no matter what." If not, I'll find someone else to build my structure.
Sadly, we are stuck with this ongoing, slow-motion train-wreck for the next few years. It will all be plain to you eventually. Even the least thoughtful people now recognize that Vietnam was a mistake, one that was loudly warned against in its day. 16 years, 1.5 million Vietnamese and 50,000 American dead later, we finally acknowledged the folly of that misadventure, and left Vietnam in disgrace, branded by our actions there as war criminals throughout the free world, having burdened our economy and our diplomatic standing with pointless bloody warfare. History repeats.
Umm... Let me see if I can sum this up: If your dad tells me (after the fact) that I can't mention you, then I can't?
Somebody should have said something about that to Bush and Cheney, when they were parading around the south in the 2000 primary insinuating that McCain's adopted daughter, who happens to be black, was his actual daughter, playing on southern whites' fear of miscegenation (race mixing). What cause was there to tell southerners that McCain had a black child? Is that ok?
At least Kerry's comments came in the context of a discussion about gay rights, rather that in the context of stirring up racial hatred against his opponent in the primary. McCain repeatedly asked The Bush campaign to stop race-baiting at the time, but they did not stop. They kept it up, because it was working.
The Cheneys aren't really outraged at such a tactic; they and their group employs such tactics, and they have never said a word about it; they've even done it themselves. So, if they aren't really outraged, I guess we don't have to listen to their rules, as interpreted by you.
Throughout recent history, Republicans have made political hay out of racism and homophobia. I guess we can safely say that if you are a racist or a homophobe, we know how you will vote. Republicans are the party of choice for those that hate others.
BTW: No matter how pissed off you get, it does not affect the truth or validity of a statement that you make. By your stated logic, if you were able to maintain a constant state of pure, raging fury, you would always be right.
The French lost the colony of Vietnam. We stepped in to make it a capitalist country. There was little support for Vietnam by the Soviets, and there was only a little more by the Chinese. We committed atrocites when they started to kick our ass out of THEIR country. When we finally gave up, we looked stupid. Because we had been stupid. We did some thin not only unwise but also immorral according to our own codes and most everyone else, and we paid the price.
Jump forward 30 years. The same year as we invade another country for no good reason and begin torturing their people and getting our asses handed to us, a documentary come out called "Fog of War" in which the architect of the Vietnam War, Robert McNamara, admits how stupid the whole thing was, and how misguided and ridiculous the ideology was that fueled such stupidity.
We already know all that about this war, and yet we still have wrestlemania republicans like yourself trolling forums talking about how "France is Baad... mmKay?" You are the reason that rest of the world fears us.
Your personal ignorance is annoying and comical. Our collective ignorace is dangerous.
Look: The French are not obligated to help us when we go attack people who have done nothing to us.
The may even be obligated to oppose us and undermine our interests, when we go attacking other countries with no justification, as we have so recently done. This is what the Germans were doing when they invaded France. We felt obligated to assist them when they were invaded unjustifiably. They were attacking without provocation, on trumped-up ideological justifications. Like the ones that we are using to continue to prosecute our ignorant and imbecilic war against Iraq.
Also: France was correct to surrender to Germany. When you are faced with a fight that you cannot win, you must surrender. Sun Tzu said that 2200 years ago, and it stands today. If all that you will do by fighting is to get your people killed and get defeated anyway, it is better to surrender. As it was, it worked out well for them. By surrendering, they were able to sustain a powerful guerrilla resistance using trained military personnel. This force of terrorists and saboteurs laid the foundation for our invasion of France, and made liberation possible. France's surrender made winning the war possible. If they had not surrendered, their military would have been summarily crushed, and could not have gone on fighting from the shadows.
This, by the way, is EXACTLY how we won our own Revolutionary War.
Why did it work? Because the "liberation" was a popular movement with broad support among all people of the nation to be "liberated".
Why will we fail in Iraq? Because we are not "liberating" anyone, we are subjugating them. We are playing the role the Germans played in France, to the letter. We are facing entrenched guerrilla networks of ex-members of the Iraqi military (that our advisors helped to train, BTW).
You may be interested to note that France paid for every grain of gunpowder we fired in our revolutionary war. If not for them, we would not have won independence. Of this there is no doubt among scholars and readers of military history. And when they were done, they gave us our greatest symbol, the Statue of Liberty.
The question is, what does your foaming-at-the-mouth rightist BS have to do with computers, or an Egyptian installfest, other than the obvious loathing that you have for non-Americans?
Slashdot Mirror
Umm, wouldn't a shorter lifespan effectively speed up evolution of the species in the long run? And in the short run, since females incubate their young in the ingested blood, wouldn't a shorter lifespan lead to more breeding and thus more blood consumption?
In D&D, the Dungeon Master isn't the leader. He's the opposition.
A dungeon is a kind of prison:
http://thesaurus.com/browse/dungeon
So, what is a warden, if not the master of a dungeon?
"Some people are opposed to the death penalty because it makes the state into a murderer. I'm opposed to the prison system, because it turns the state into a gay dungeonmaster."
-Emo Philips
People with autism-spectrum disorders are well demonstrated to be able to achieve hyper-normal ability in specific areas of motor skills. I had a 12 year old kung-fu student with Aspergers, and his formwork was really amazing (although he lost his edge when he came into contact with an opponent). I had other students for longer and with seemingly stronger basic ability who never *got* the forms the way this boy did. Now he's 17 and spends all his time playing X-Box.
So, did he cheat, or not? Maybe, but if he did, Microsoft really ought to give him another chance. The real problem here is that they refuse to slap him on the wrist and then clear the tag. Whether he's autistic or not, he's 11 YEARS OLD. A "no strikes" rule before permanently labeling a kid a cheater is really draconian way to deal with a child.
I mean, just look at the banks.
(Or forestry in the 1980s. Or the savings and loan arena in the 1980s. Or AT&T in the 19th Century...)
This isn't a normal year... we're at solar minimum, with greater than average cloud cover over most areas, in winter. Basically, sans ice age, solar panels will never receive less energy than they do right now.
Aren't I a clever multinational?
There are tons of webcam apps that record images only when the image changes. If you have a webcam in the bezel of your laptop, you can use it to record everyone who enters your cube, or even looks into it, when you aren't around. Or you can just buy an external webcam. Anyway, just run it whenever you aren't in there, and spool the images to a remote location on the network. First, you can see who is scoping your stuff, and then you can catch them in the act if that actually do run off with it. Hell, barring actual theft, it may just be fun to see what people do in your cube when you aren't around... or it may be chilling and paranoia inducing. Main disadvantage of security culture? A propagation of fear and fear-mongering.
For Mac, check out BTV Pro:
http://www.bensoftware.com/btvpro.html
Similar software exists for Winboxes as well.
The story has already been written and published. It clearly follows the Rip Van Winkle storyline. All stories are prior art, because none is original in its broad strokes.
OK, Mr. Anonymous Coward: What was idiotic or ignorant about my post? Do you have any points to make? Or maybe you'd like to deconstruct one of mine? Feel free. But disliking what I have said does not make your opinion valid. You have to prove it.
Don't say anything if you have nothing to say. If you don't have any ammo, don't pull out your gun. If you want to pick a fight, be prepared to swing. Otherwise you are just some loudmouth standing across the street calling names as your audience walks away. Or looking stupid and whining while I come back and stomp a mudhole in your ass.
BTW: My score here is only 1, so maybe you should try again to figure out how to work those filters. And stop lying.
The worst thing about the internet is text formatting?
Hmmm... I would have thought the worst things were the poorly informed opinions most people have, their deadly committment to those poorly informed opinions, and the average inability to spell common words.
But I will forget all about those, now that I have heard the truth. It's the text formatting.
What precludes the New York Times from judging what torture is? Do you have a judgment on the definition of torture? It seem that you must, because you seem to disagree with the definition that you perceive the New York Times to have. What makes you qualified to judge a definition of torture? What makes you qualified to say anything about it?
c s/declaration.h tml
(I'll give you a hint: It's your freedom of speech. You share this qualification to judge and speak with the New York Times.)
The Declaration of Independence.
http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdo
As it is the foundational document for our system of government, I heartily recommend reading it.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
Thomas Jefferson
The Declaration of Independence
Unless I am mistaken, The United States has not signed any international treaty that would make our treatment of Guantanamo prisoners legal under international law.
Where did you hear of these treaties? Can you tell me the names of them?
1: Many of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay were not captured on the battlefield. Many were arrested in the US and have been detained without trial, and without charges. There is no public record of what they are being held for. Many are being released after months and years of detention and torture, it having been decided that they had done nothing. Imagine that: You are arrested having done no wrong, You are arrested without you or your family being told why. You are detained and tortured for 26 months. Then, you are released without apology, or comment.
2: The Geneva Convention specifically applies to enemies captured on the battlefield, and to nobody else. Why would it not appliy to enemies in this conflict? Who did you think it applied to?
3: If we invade someone else's country, shouldn't we expect some of them to resist? Would it be ok for us to resist if foreign soldiers invade our country? If we do so, is it right for them to detain and torture us without trial if we are captured?
Hmmm. There is a military base there, and it is US territory, and US territorrial laws are in effect there. Where did you get your information? I have heard it differently.
Are you a racist? It seems like you are racist against people from India. If so, why?
If not, why does reportage of a major technological disaster in a technology forum bother you?
What, can't handle an outside perspective?
You can always tell someone who is unsure of his situation when observations of it provoke such a response. Pay attention: Things look differently from other perspectives, and a glimpse from outside is worth at least a moment's reflection.
Some public services are necessary in civilized society, like the fire department and the police and like welfare and education. They all are there to alleviate unforseen problems that arise from the normal business of having a society.
When you have a society, some people are going to do better than others. Some people's houses will burn, others will not. Some people will be the victims of crime, others will not. We accept that. However, we need not let the house burn. We can form a fire brigade, and all the members of the society can pitch in to prevent individual disasters, which in turn prevents the individual disatser from becoming a general disaster, such as has happened in history with the Chicago Fire of 1905, or the Great London Fire, and many others.
Some people will suffer setbacks that prevent them from competing economically. People who are not doing well can get into a track from which they will not escape without assistance. This could occur due to an unforeseen accident, the loss of an uninsured home to flood or other disaster, injury or other medical need, or just a string of poor luck.
If a person remains in a depressed economic track for a long time, they will become desperate, and will become a destabilizing influence on society. We tend to put the poor in bad housing in bad neighborhoods. The civic life that develops is not conducive to success. Petty and violent crimes are committed by the desperate, not those with plenty.
By helping people who have fallen into an increased need category, we create and environment where people want to take part in the health of their country.
All civilization is welfare, on a basic level. When you call the cops or the fire department, that is welfare. That is a service provided to you by the state, in the interest of developing a stable and prosperous society. When you drive on a road, that is welfare. When you send your kids to public school, that's welfare too.
Without basic services, civilization crumbles, without fail.
Our nation has joined a handful of wealthy, first world nations that subsidize a college education to their citizens. Because we already do not fund our university system as well as other nations, we are gradually losing our standing as the world's innovation center for technological development. If we remove university education funding altogether, soon we will not have the skills to compete in the global marketplace, and we will rapidly lose our entire economic base. It is already happening.
The current neoconservative platform, if fully implemented, would rapidly reduce our nation to a third world country.
Please, take some basic political science classes, and get some education in the basic functions of society. We don't expect people that have never been exposed to a scripting language to be able to suddenly write code, and yet we somehow expect our voters to be able to make decisions about complex political systems without any education in the workings of them.
A little more education could help you to develop your political ideas, and you might begin to see that the current situation is a lot more complex and less wholesome than it appears to you on the surface.
Democrats are good for the economy, Republicans are good for the very wealthy. We end up in this cycle, where the Dems build a thriving economy, and then the Repubs come in and give all the money to the very wealthy, thus destroying the economy. Once the economy is utterly wrecked, we elect a Democrat, and things start to rebuild.
This time, we are really in trouble though: The banks that lend us all that money are saying they aren't going to let us get over 8 trillion dollars in the hole. And right now we are at 7.4 trillion. If we meet that threshold, the whole house of cards comes down, and our economy does what happened to the Russians in the 80's. Our time at the top will be done.
Given the anger that everyone in the world has for us right now, I must say I am a little worried.
Don't forget the western seaboard. We voted for Kerry too. Oh, and the great lakes region. Pretty much all the states that produce any economic power in this country voted for Kerry. Except Texas.
I don't know what your values might be. I do know that your candidate has built the biggest deficit our country has ever had, on track to get much, much larger. Bigger even than that of his father and Reagan, the previous recordholders.
Who is only president to balance the budget in the last 35 years?
Clinton. Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility.
Republicans are the party of deficit spending.
Good point. I hadn't thought of the disbursement of my hard won liberal dollars supporting programs in states filled with redneck welfare queens. That's ironic. Maybe the "blue" states can stage a strike to show the reds where their bread is buttered.
Agreed. Defense contractors are the scum of the earth. Not only do they make things that kill others, but they sell weapons indiscriminately to whoever can shell out the cash, regardless of the use to which they will be put.
Defcon saleman: "Can I make a buck on your upcoming act of genocide? Deal!"
Worst of all, they get sweetheart contracts with my government, so that I have to pay for activity which I find to be abhorrent. Those weapons kill a lot more people than abortion, and yet we see righties lining up to support the murder machine, right after they talk about "affirming the sanctity of life."
Please. Do what you feel you must, but spare us your insipid hypocrisy.
You don't _know_ anything of the sort. You believe, as the carefully crafted advertising was meant to make you. But knowing would not even be possible. How could one _know_ what Bush thinks, whatever you think about his honesty?
You seem to express a feeling of pseudo-religious zeal for a man that would send you to die for nothing but his pride and profits without ever taking a second look at you.
You say you have a logical reason for your position, but you don't say what it is. Sounds familiar; I think someone was talking about banned weapons or something, but also couldn't produce the goods. Want to buy a bridge?
BTW: Kerry did almost win. The republican ticket exceeded the democratic ticket by only a few percentage points of the tabulated votes in the popular election. Once you realize the lengths to which the republicans went to throw out minority votes and those of other likely democratic voters, it is easy to see that it could easily have gone the other way. You just have to engage your thinking part. You are studying engineering; you should be able to tell the difference between a few percentage points and "there is no way in hell that Kerry would have won, no matter what." If not, I'll find someone else to build my structure.
Sadly, we are stuck with this ongoing, slow-motion train-wreck for the next few years. It will all be plain to you eventually. Even the least thoughtful people now recognize that Vietnam was a mistake, one that was loudly warned against in its day. 16 years, 1.5 million Vietnamese and 50,000 American dead later, we finally acknowledged the folly of that misadventure, and left Vietnam in disgrace, branded by our actions there as war criminals throughout the free world, having burdened our economy and our diplomatic standing with pointless bloody warfare. History repeats.
Umm... Let me see if I can sum this up: If your dad tells me (after the fact) that I can't mention you, then I can't?
Somebody should have said something about that to Bush and Cheney, when they were parading around the south in the 2000 primary insinuating that McCain's adopted daughter, who happens to be black, was his actual daughter, playing on southern whites' fear of miscegenation (race mixing). What cause was there to tell southerners that McCain had a black child? Is that ok?
At least Kerry's comments came in the context of a discussion about gay rights, rather that in the context of stirring up racial hatred against his opponent in the primary. McCain repeatedly asked The Bush campaign to stop race-baiting at the time, but they did not stop. They kept it up, because it was working.
The Cheneys aren't really outraged at such a tactic; they and their group employs such tactics, and they have never said a word about it; they've even done it themselves. So, if they aren't really outraged, I guess we don't have to listen to their rules, as interpreted by you.
Throughout recent history, Republicans have made political hay out of racism and homophobia. I guess we can safely say that if you are a racist or a homophobe, we know how you will vote. Republicans are the party of choice for those that hate others.
BTW: No matter how pissed off you get, it does not affect the truth or validity of a statement that you make. By your stated logic, if you were able to maintain a constant state of pure, raging fury, you would always be right.
Are you more right if you get more pissed off?
If you are happy, are you always wrong?
The French lost the colony of Vietnam. We stepped in to make it a capitalist country. There was little support for Vietnam by the Soviets, and there was only a little more by the Chinese. We committed atrocites when they started to kick our ass out of THEIR country. When we finally gave up, we looked stupid. Because we had been stupid. We did some thin not only unwise but also immorral according to our own codes and most everyone else, and we paid the price.
Jump forward 30 years. The same year as we invade another country for no good reason and begin torturing their people and getting our asses handed to us, a documentary come out called "Fog of War" in which the architect of the Vietnam War, Robert McNamara, admits how stupid the whole thing was, and how misguided and ridiculous the ideology was that fueled such stupidity.
We already know all that about this war, and yet we still have wrestlemania republicans like yourself trolling forums talking about how "France is Baad... mmKay?" You are the reason that rest of the world fears us.
Your personal ignorance is annoying and comical. Our collective ignorace is dangerous.
Look: The French are not obligated to help us when we go attack people who have done nothing to us.
The may even be obligated to oppose us and undermine our interests, when we go attacking other countries with no justification, as we have so recently done. This is what the Germans were doing when they invaded France. We felt obligated to assist them when they were invaded unjustifiably. They were attacking without provocation, on trumped-up ideological justifications. Like the ones that we are using to continue to prosecute our ignorant and imbecilic war against Iraq.
Also: France was correct to surrender to Germany. When you are faced with a fight that you cannot win, you must surrender. Sun Tzu said that 2200 years ago, and it stands today. If all that you will do by fighting is to get your people killed and get defeated anyway, it is better to surrender. As it was, it worked out well for them. By surrendering, they were able to sustain a powerful guerrilla resistance using trained military personnel. This force of terrorists and saboteurs laid the foundation for our invasion of France, and made liberation possible. France's surrender made winning the war possible. If they had not surrendered, their military would have been summarily crushed, and could not have gone on fighting from the shadows.
This, by the way, is EXACTLY how we won our own Revolutionary War.
Why did it work? Because the "liberation" was a popular movement with broad support among all people of the nation to be "liberated".
Why will we fail in Iraq? Because we are not "liberating" anyone, we are subjugating them. We are playing the role the Germans played in France, to the letter. We are facing entrenched guerrilla networks of ex-members of the Iraqi military (that our advisors helped to train, BTW).
You may be interested to note that France paid for every grain of gunpowder we fired in our revolutionary war. If not for them, we would not have won independence. Of this there is no doubt among scholars and readers of military history. And when they were done, they gave us our greatest symbol, the Statue of Liberty.
The question is, what does your foaming-at-the-mouth rightist BS have to do with computers, or an Egyptian installfest, other than the obvious loathing that you have for non-Americans?