You must mean "Jabberjaw" (the shark) and my all-time favorite, "Laff-a-lympics"... Grape Ape, Speed Buggy, Jabberjaw and all those Hanna-Barbera guys were on Laff-a-lympics...
An S-3B is actually pretty small, it seats four people, they use them for surveillance. It has the safest flying record of all the planes that land on carriers, which is why they used it. The Abe had to extend its cruise by two days, after the longest cruise in history for an aircraft carrier. It costs a lot to operate an aircraft carrier for one day. Also, normally at this point in the cruise, the planes are all gone, but they left a few on the deck for effect, which screws with the Navy's logistics, which again, costs money. It was a waste of taxpayer money, and yet all anyone does is gush about how cool he looks in a flight suit. Those photos are going to end up on the jumbotron at the Republican convention, printed on campaign materials, and end up in TV spots. It's one thing when the President visits service members while they're on the job, it's another to ask them to go out of their way like this. It's taking the whole Commander-in-Chief thing way too far.
That aircraft carrier, that airplane, and the salaries of the aviators that fly them are also the property of the people, not George W. Bush, and for the President to feel that he is somehow entitled to use them for photo-ops is shameful. I just have to think about how in Oregon the public schools are closing early due to budget problems, or how prisoners in Kentucky are being set free, the fuel alone for that little PR stunt could have paid to keep those schools open.
As far as showing "that they care" about the troops, wasting tax money on stunts like this while cutting veteran's benefits strikes me as callous. Spare us the "Top Gun" act, make the speech from the Rose Garden, and return the benefits to the veterans that deserve them a hell of a lot more than someone who blew off their last two years in the Air Guard during Vietnam.
I must agree that politics in this country is thoroughly corrupt. This is just beyond the pale for me.
Consider the facts: he did not have to arrive in a Navy S-3B, a helicopter would have worked (the Abe was 39 miles off San Diego). It also breaks a tradition that seeks to retain the civilian nature of the office of the President. He may be Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, but that is not his major purpose. The appearance walks a dangerous line that portrays the President as a militarist, which smacks of fascism. The speech would have been better if it was given at the rose garden. We would not have to foot the bill for the extra days the ship was at sea, and the fuel for the unnecessary trip. That money could have been better spent helping keep Oregon's public schools open for the whole year.
As for campaign donor perks, spending the night in the Lincoln Bedroom is a mere bagatelle considering that Enron allowed Governor Bush to use its jet for his campaign. Democrats have their campaign lapses of judgment, but Republicans are shameless...
Well, Bush spent *our* money to land on an aircraft carrier so he could use the photos for his campaign. I don't approve of that. Makes the whole Lincoln Bedroom thing look kinda petty, doesn't it?
He made that statement after we said no to the extension of the inspections. So if we'd given it to him, they may have changed their tune.
And so what if France wanted to lift the sanctions? Every petroleum company in the world wanted the sanctions lifted so they could do business there There were people in the US that argued that we should lift the sanctions.
France was not the only country to supply Iraq with weapons.
I just think it's hypocritical to try and call out French commercial interests while pretending that US interests were entirely noble, and that France is somehow betraying the US by not going along with every ill-conceived neo-conservative gunboat diplomacy idea.
I have. It was just as good as anything in the U.S. I didn't have to wait, and even the prescriptions were free. This was in Ireland. After my X-rays, and everything, I asked where I should pay, and they laughed. A friend (another American) who was there with me and had her appendix out. Again, just as good as anything here. Didn't cost her a penny. Imagine what having your appendix out in the US without insurance would cost.
I've experienced it first hand. You can't convince me that our system is at all better.
Let's not even talk about how connections to oil companies informed people's decisions about this war, because the U.S. looks far worse upon examination.
Did you know that Halliburton was lobbying the US government for an exemption to the sanctions so that it can deal with Saddam in 1992 onward? Funny how when it became clear that Halliburton was not going to get its exemption that the PNAC came about in 1998? Not ha-ha funny, I assure you.
If we'd given Iraq another 30 days, who is to say how France would have voted? They said they'd oppose it under any circumstances right now. If they'd gotten the 30 days, maybe they would have gone along. Since waiting 30 days conflicted with Rumsfeld's timetable, we alienated them.
You don't have that right in the US, either. So what's your point? Oh! This is about guns. Canadians have guns. They just don't feel compelled to use them as a means of conflict resolution. Check your state and federal laws. You can't buy a "sub-machine" gun in the US, either. Well, technically you can, but not without time and considerable expense, as well as extensive background checks.
I appreciate that you're anti-gun. I'm not, but your shrill misrepresentations don't give your case any strength.
I'd like to, but the EU has made it perfectly clear that their full-up and don't need any non-EUers. I'll consider Canada as soon as I finish my masters. Australia and NZ are also not hot on the prospect, either. I guess Costa Rica's nice, but the bugs...
The framers felt that it was so obviously inferred from the bill of rights that it didn't need to be enumerated. Of course we have a right to privacy. They figured it would be obvious to anyone with half a brain (as it is), that privacy is concomitant with every article in the bill of rights. Including, in my non-legal scholarly opinion, the all-but-forgotten 3rd amendment.
No. Sounds bad. What if the majority of people voted to make fundamentalist "christianity" the official state religion and stripped anyone who was not a fundamentalist christian of their citizenship? Just because it's democratically expressed, that doesn't make it right. A pure democracy like this would be a living nightmare for anyone in a minority (racial, ideological, religious)
I'll take the republic with the separation of powers over a democracy like that every time.
$9.00 an hour is about the same as sitting back and collectin $400 a week
Minus the soul-crushing nightmare that is working for the service industry. I paid for unemployment, I'll take it and use the time to find a job that won't leave me wanting to kill myself at the end of my shift.
So being on the so-called 'left' means that you automatically support terrorism? I think not. More on that later.
All terrorists are Marxist revolutionaries? Hardly. Can I refer you to the contras and the death squads of central America? All of them supported by right-wing juntas. The UVF in Ulster is defintiely not Marxist. Al-Queda rejects socialism in all forms because it's secular. The Army of God, a US terrorist organization is decidedly anti-socialist. Sorry, but socialist revolutionary types have hardly cornered the market on terrorism.
What 'socialist' countries that support terrorism are you talking about? North Korea for sure, only in the sense that they sell weapons to countries who have a hard time keeping track of said weapons. Cuba? Please. China? Prove it. Iran? Not a socialist country. Syria? Yes.
Now when it comes to terrorism all Americans respond to, we're talking Al-Queda and their associates. Decidedly non-marxist, with support coming mainly from places like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, hardly Marxist revolutionary states by any stretch of the imagination.
As I am someone who is most certainly ideologically on the so-called 'left', your assertion that I must be automatically sympathetic to terrorism is absurd. I may beleieve that Palestinians have a right to self-determination and the Israel is wrong to be creating the settlements, but that hardly implies that I support suicide bombers or other kinds of terrorism. I also think that Israel is using their military inappropriately. In general, I reject violence as a means of conflict resolution.
Now, I would never try to speak for anyone else, but to imply that those on the left support terrorism is a mischaracterization. The British Labour party is a socialist organization, but I don't think you think they support terrorism.
Terrorist tactics are used by extremists on all ends of all political spectrums. It is not the exclusive property of the radical ideological left.
Uhhhh... So let me get this straight: Muslims are infiltrating European countries as part of a concerted global effort to convert the entire world to Islam? Wow. I hear the comyanists are putting fluoride in our water supply to sap us of our precious bodily fluids.
How come William Kristol said the the 'liberal media' was basically a lie? I quote: "The whole idea of the 'liberal media' was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures."
I'm as 'liberal' as they come, but I found that site to be completely biased, totally hyperbolic. I love that photoshopped picture of a B-2 dropping all those bombs, as though the things could actually carry that many bombs. That site is garbage.
Slashdot Mirror
You must mean "Jabberjaw" (the shark) and my all-time favorite, "Laff-a-lympics"... Grape Ape, Speed Buggy, Jabberjaw and all those Hanna-Barbera guys were on Laff-a-lympics...
Just remember: one man's patriot is another man's terrorist. The one who gets to decide? John Ashcroft. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
That aircraft carrier, that airplane, and the salaries of the aviators that fly them are also the property of the people, not George W. Bush, and for the President to feel that he is somehow entitled to use them for photo-ops is shameful. I just have to think about how in Oregon the public schools are closing early due to budget problems, or how prisoners in Kentucky are being set free, the fuel alone for that little PR stunt could have paid to keep those schools open.
As far as showing "that they care" about the troops, wasting tax money on stunts like this while cutting veteran's benefits strikes me as callous. Spare us the "Top Gun" act, make the speech from the Rose Garden, and return the benefits to the veterans that deserve them a hell of a lot more than someone who blew off their last two years in the Air Guard during Vietnam.
I must agree that politics in this country is thoroughly corrupt. This is just beyond the pale for me.
As for campaign donor perks, spending the night in the Lincoln Bedroom is a mere bagatelle considering that Enron allowed Governor Bush to use its jet for his campaign. Democrats have their campaign lapses of judgment, but Republicans are shameless...
Well, Bush spent *our* money to land on an aircraft carrier so he could use the photos for his campaign. I don't approve of that. Makes the whole Lincoln Bedroom thing look kinda petty, doesn't it?
And so what if France wanted to lift the sanctions? Every petroleum company in the world wanted the sanctions lifted so they could do business there There were people in the US that argued that we should lift the sanctions.
France was not the only country to supply Iraq with weapons.
I just think it's hypocritical to try and call out French commercial interests while pretending that US interests were entirely noble, and that France is somehow betraying the US by not going along with every ill-conceived neo-conservative gunboat diplomacy idea.
I've experienced it first hand. You can't convince me that our system is at all better.
Did you know that Halliburton was lobbying the US government for an exemption to the sanctions so that it can deal with Saddam in 1992 onward? Funny how when it became clear that Halliburton was not going to get its exemption that the PNAC came about in 1998? Not ha-ha funny, I assure you.
If we'd given Iraq another 30 days, who is to say how France would have voted? They said they'd oppose it under any circumstances right now. If they'd gotten the 30 days, maybe they would have gone along. Since waiting 30 days conflicted with Rumsfeld's timetable, we alienated them.
The people who do that are "people of conscience" or some such Ashcroftian doublespeak. One man's freedom fighter is another's terrorist.
Without those "hordes of illegal aliens", you'd be paying $5.00 for a head of lettuce. Don't bite the hand that feeds you.
I appreciate that you're anti-gun. I'm not, but your shrill misrepresentations don't give your case any strength.
I'd like to, but the EU has made it perfectly clear that their full-up and don't need any non-EUers. I'll consider Canada as soon as I finish my masters. Australia and NZ are also not hot on the prospect, either. I guess Costa Rica's nice, but the bugs...
The framers felt that it was so obviously inferred from the bill of rights that it didn't need to be enumerated. Of course we have a right to privacy. They figured it would be obvious to anyone with half a brain (as it is), that privacy is concomitant with every article in the bill of rights. Including, in my non-legal scholarly opinion, the all-but-forgotten 3rd amendment.
You sure those mountains weren't the Columbias?
I'm so angry that I refuse to post anonymously!
I'll take the republic with the separation of powers over a democracy like that every time.
Yeah. It's all to pave the way for French world domination. Hooboy.
Minus the soul-crushing nightmare that is working for the service industry. I paid for unemployment, I'll take it and use the time to find a job that won't leave me wanting to kill myself at the end of my shift.
I saw a guy with one in Prospect Park. It was airborne for about 5 seconds before it crashed, destroying it. They look hard to control.
All terrorists are Marxist revolutionaries? Hardly. Can I refer you to the contras and the death squads of central America? All of them supported by right-wing juntas. The UVF in Ulster is defintiely not Marxist. Al-Queda rejects socialism in all forms because it's secular. The Army of God, a US terrorist organization is decidedly anti-socialist. Sorry, but socialist revolutionary types have hardly cornered the market on terrorism.
What 'socialist' countries that support terrorism are you talking about? North Korea for sure, only in the sense that they sell weapons to countries who have a hard time keeping track of said weapons. Cuba? Please. China? Prove it. Iran? Not a socialist country. Syria? Yes.
Now when it comes to terrorism all Americans respond to, we're talking Al-Queda and their associates. Decidedly non-marxist, with support coming mainly from places like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, hardly Marxist revolutionary states by any stretch of the imagination.
As I am someone who is most certainly ideologically on the so-called 'left', your assertion that I must be automatically sympathetic to terrorism is absurd. I may beleieve that Palestinians have a right to self-determination and the Israel is wrong to be creating the settlements, but that hardly implies that I support suicide bombers or other kinds of terrorism. I also think that Israel is using their military inappropriately. In general, I reject violence as a means of conflict resolution.
Now, I would never try to speak for anyone else, but to imply that those on the left support terrorism is a mischaracterization. The British Labour party is a socialist organization, but I don't think you think they support terrorism.
Terrorist tactics are used by extremists on all ends of all political spectrums. It is not the exclusive property of the radical ideological left.
Honestly, where do you come up with this?
Bad puppy.
Hey, don't say bad things about Judy 'Lizard neck' Woodruff...
I'm as 'liberal' as they come, but I found that site to be completely biased, totally hyperbolic. I love that photoshopped picture of a B-2 dropping all those bombs, as though the things could actually carry that many bombs. That site is garbage.