Um... By using the term as part of his satirical routine, Colbert sought to critique the tendency to rely upon "truthiness" and its use as an appeal to emotion and tool of rhetoric in contemporary socio-political discourse. (emphasis mine).
Check my sig... I know it was a 1984 reference. To (probably) quote the President, I was merely 'contemporary-ifying' it, wrapping one joke within another (please, oh please say it is a joke and not prophetic...). W, so very obviously, has now clue what the 'truth' is so what good would a Ministry of Truth do him? Besides, reality has a well known liberal bias! And we all know the liberals are terreerists!
So, in summary: you are an idiot. BUT, least you could be President one day!
PS: That comment relating you to the current President was low, I sincerely apologize.
<DevilsAdvocate>
Why in the hell can't we use 9/11 as any excuse what so ever to trample on the rights of terrorists who are out to destroy *us* and *our* way of life!
</DevilsAdvocate>
I can see parallels between this 9/11 bullshit that the current admin is doing and what Israel has been doing for decades... using a true tragedy against its people (9/11 and the holocaust respectively) as an excuse to visit like tragedies (or worse) on their enemies. And once again, the true irony here is that as recipients of said tragedies... we should know better. Having experienced these atrocities ourselves first hand we should be the last peoples of the world to visit like tragedies on others. And yet... it seems like we both use these events as a sort of carte blanch to do what we will.
Pathetic.
This is EXACTLY where my mind went!
on
A Closed Off System?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
If you want what the poster suggest, you'd pretty much have an XBox/PS2/etc with a keyboard.
One of the many, MANY hazards with this would be having to buy a supported printer, supported network card, etc... as 3rd party software (and there by hardware) is excluded by definition.
As another poster has mentioned, wouldn't a LiveCD suffice?
If you're looking at taking the Linux plunge (especially when coming from Win2k/XP), do yourself a favour and install Ubuntu (then add in the KDE packages so you can run in KDE sessions - KDE approximately equals Windows-esque-ish-ness, Gnome approximately equals Mac-esque-ish-ness and Gnome is the default in Ubuntu).
If you'd like to get a feel for Linux before installing, try out Mepis (which I'm pretty sure is a LiveCD) or Knoppix (which is not very polished, but does give you a KDE desktop to play with - but Ubuntu is leagues better eye-candy/usability wise).
There is Kubuntu, but it doesn't have Gnome at all, which will eventually cause you problems. You can install Kubuntu then Gnome (which is what I did), but I'd suggest Ubuntu + KDE (as I had to fiddle to get all the necessary parts of Gnome installed under Kubuntu). Then run Automatrix and you've got a fully functional system ready to go.
I started out with SuSE 9.3 (a buddy of mine at work installed it for me). Then within a few weeks 10.0 was out and we did a fresh install. SuSE took a bit of hand holding to get "up and running" (decess for DVDs, mp3 decoding, etc - PackMan is your friend). After playing around in SuSE for a few months (including getting VMware running, then attempting unsuccessfully to install Xandros and Linspire, but successfully getting Win2k running), I got my wife a new laptop (same model as mine with SuSE) and decided to try Kubuntu out.
Frankly for new Linux converts, (k)Ubuntu rocks. The weird issues I have on my SuSE laptop's Synaptic touchpad do not occur under (k)Ubuntu, and it correctly recognized the widescreen monitor (SuSE didn't). Updating is a breeze - just last night I updated her system... 10% of her packages needed to be updated (1500-ish IIRC) and it took a grand total of 25-30 minutes including a kernel update!
I was about to go from SuSE 10.0 to (k)Ubuntu when 10.1 was released a few weeks ago. So I though what the hell and did an update. 10.1 is nice, but it's got some MAJOR issues - the autoupdate, well doesn't, my ATI Drivers no-go-no-mo, Azureus and eventually kTorrent stopped working despite repeated program reinstalls... Basically 10.1 is not for you (or me).
I'll be installing (k)Ubuntu on my laptop this weekend.
I've gotta say, after a bit of a teething process (a good 4-6 weeks of Google searches to get "simple" shit to work, like my ATI drivers, VMware, etc) I'm sooo very much more happy under (k)Ubuntu (even under SuSE 10.0, which is good, just more fiddly)! That 25-30 minute update I mentioned above was while I was surfing the web with 15-20 tabs open in Firefox with the system being responsive the entire time. You just don't get that under Windows!
Good luck on the migration! And if you need help, I'll toss as much your way as I can (being a 4 month old Linux n00b myself).
Common/.! Why was I the only one to think of this!! Alright, everyone hand over their nerd cards... NOW (and just to avoid any questions - no, handing over your nerd cards DOES NOT entitle to you re-aquire your man cards).
I know, hence my mention of submarine mazes (or whatever I said, I can't remember;)
But really, I must agree with another poster (AC or no): "...it's becoming a predictable reality that corporations prefer to litigate rather than innovate."
Ok, I know that patents can take a while to get thru the maze that is the US patent office, and I also know of submarine patents, but does Prior Art mean anything anymore?
I'm all for gun ownership. I think the statistic is that members of households with guns are three times more likely to be the victim of a homicide than non-gun households, so, by all means... stock up.
Wow, and here I thought I'd ever be convinved to be against gun control... Darwinism by personal choices... I LIKE IT!!
That is what I do. "How do you use a traffic light? How do you determine if it's safe to drive thru the intersection?"
With this, I (almost) always get "If it's red, you stop. Green, you go." and which point I interrupt "And yellow (or orange for you Aussies out there)." It's about here that they start to think about it. Then I ask "What if it's raining?" quickly followed by "What if it's the first rain of the year?" and shortly thereafter followed by "What if you see someone else running the light in front of you?" I then explain that if I were writing a program to do something as "simple" as deciding if it's safe to go thru a traffic light, I'd have to think of ALL of these issues, plus everything else that could ever possibility happen while traversing an intersection. If I manage to miss something, it becomes a "bug" in that program.
In my experience, people pretty much "get it" with this analogy. Course, YMMV...
GGPP: Khmm, I was almost convinced, the US government (the crusaders) is owned by the Israelis:-)
Sorry, I was responding only to this statement, not the FA. So frankly, I was off topic.
But one could also agrue... just becasue you let the dog walk doesn't mean you can't yank back on the chain every once in a while to remind them who's boss >=)
...it's just that our Christian religious nut-jobs are of the belief that for Jebus to come back, the state of Israel has to be in existence. Now, IIRC when Jebus sets back down, it also means armageddon for the rest of us soulless, godless, heathen infidels. So in effect they are trying to bring about the end of the world (or at least maintaining the situation so that the end of the world may come). This is the reason the US lets Israel do whatever the fuck they want.
Exactly how is that something a "good" person/group would do?
Lets look at the play by play... An individual makes a comment about Iraqi oil was meant to, in one way or another, pay for the "war"/its repercussions which hasn't seemed to have happened. You comment that no one ever made that claim. I enter the conversation, simply referencing a number of Administration quotes on the matter. Enter your first personal attack ("look at things with a rational eye" and "I would certainly hesitate to think that Bill Clinton would have been so cruel as to steal money from another country!"). I never made mention of "stealing" or "cruel"ity, I simply pointed out that you were in error in your original post (which was "I don't remember Bush ever saying [...] that we would pay for it with Iraqi oil exports"). I took "it" to mean "reconstruction", not "war", I guess you meant "it" differently.
I then explained that *I* understood these comments to mean "reconstruction" (or at least not "war") at the time. I then pointed out that reconstruction efforts have not seemed to be a focal point of the Administration (which is a point you asserted - "...That is Bush's BABY right there, he's snuggling Iraq, trying to give them a good home...."). I then allowed you to take me off the main topic and down the road of the Clinton administration, which quickly became a pissing match of presidents (course I didn't sing Clinton's praises, I just referenced some of W's... shortcomings). I then ceded the point, stating "Now, this is a bit unfair as he was at the helm while America suffered one of it's most high profile disasters, and more money would have been spent by anyone in the office at the time.".
Now I show my cards... My basic belief is that W. is doing more harm then good, and that the America of today is (in my personal view) not the America was was shown to love.
Now it gets interesting. You begin to put words into my mouth ("You have inferred that Bush is just about the worst person on earth" you asserted that, not I), pose untrue statements ("The only person making inferences here is you.", "...you can't offer any support for that argument." - an argument you imagined), and personal attacks ("You sound like John Kerry, campaign hero.", "...yet the OBVIOUSNESS of everything still isn't getting into your skull", "You're not even a very smart liberal man, why bother?", and "You're just some ignorant schmuck."). Then, after you created an argument out of this air and insulted me over it, you claim victory ("Some guys can hold their ground, but I've reduced you to this? Sad."). Um, dude, that was your ground you were holding. Holier, meat Thou.
Now you have won, because you drag me down to your level. I address the points you pulled from thin air and defended them (well ok then, I guess "You're just some ignorant schmuck." was more truth then personal attack). Now, that was stupid.
Now you continue to create arguments out of this air ("nutrageous (sic) conspiracy theories" - I quoted the Administration for the most part, if you see conspiracy theories in those quotes, then they are yours, *not* mine) and frankly, make shit up ("You'd rather sit around with your buddies smoking pot and talking about the temperature that steel girders melt at."). Yo, if you think there was something fishy about the girders, again, your theory, not mine. And as for pot, I've never partaken as I am afraid I may enjoy it. The last thing I wanna do with my life is waste it as a pothead, but thank's for asking.
As for "This is the first National Development Strategy produced by a democratically elected government of Iraq.", where is the reference to the reconstruction plan that preceded the one drawn up by the Iraqis? Granted, I didn't ask that question, but that is what I was getting at. Was there an original plan? Or was there a 2 year and 1.5-ish month period where there was no previous plan in place to disseminate the funds authorized by Congress? Now this is an absurd question, there must have been. But as I referenced articles to the
I had no idea I was also "U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky, a Chief Deputy Democratic Whip" (as referenced in the GGP post), I guess it was me on my U.S. Representative web site that compiled that list of quotes from the administration. Otherwise, if I wasn't also Jan, then I wouldn't have been "The only person making inferences...". Nevermind the fact that I am also obviously slashdot user "NMerriam (15122)", as it was s/he who made the original comment. Damn, I must be schizophrenic. Thanks for the info!
You have inferred that Bush is just about the worst person on earth
Actually, no. I have simply inferred (to you and you alone I guess, as it was not my original intent) the W "is just about the worst [president] on earth". It that case, I'd have to agree with myself (but which myself? the Jan myself, or the NMerriam myself? Fuck, this is confusing).
which you know isn't true
Actually, none of the me's are positive about that point.
and you can't offer any support for that argument
(Neverminding the fact that that was not *my* argument) Youaresoright, Iofferedabsolutelyno support for that argument what-so-ever. Silly me, I thought we were talking about W's (and HIS administrations) references to the Iraqi's footing part of the bill. I apologize. Excellent use of the NeoCon-ish-ness "demean your critics, divert the debate and ignore the issues", well played!
To paraphrase W (and yes, I lived in Texas) - "There's an old saying in Tennessee... well, it's an old saying in Texas, I believe also in Tennessee. Actions [pauses] speak louder then [pauses] government documentation on a National Development Strategy authored more then 2 years after the invasion was 'complete'". Shouldn't that have been done BEFORE the invasion? Or at least very soon there after? Or am I a "dick" to assume some leadership in a war that "we" "choose".
Have there been elections? Yes. Have they represented the population? Depends on if your a Sunni, Kurd or Shiite. We've killed 30,000 of them (W's numbers, not mine), is that considered progress? Guess that depends on if your PWT, KKK, or NeoCon.
You're not even a very smart liberal man, why bother?
I enjoy a bit of intellectual masturbation every once in a while. Besides, since I don't go to church, I don't have a clergy thinking for me, so I guess that makes me more dumber two.
Some guys can hold their ground, but I've reduced you to this? Sad.
Let's take score, shall we?
You referenced 1 document authored by the Republic of Iraq, Iraqi Strategic Review Board, Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation to support your position.
I referenced the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Associated Press/Ex-President Jimmy Carter, The Washington Post, CNN, San Francisco Gate, and U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky's website (which itself references NYT, Reuters, The Washington Post, House Budget Committee, Congressional Testimony, CNBC, White House Press Briefings, House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplem
The inference (wow, that's a big word for describing anything Bush has done) was always that the bulk of the costs (not necessarily the *war* costs, which were pegged at $50-60bil, BTW) would come from their resources. Did *I* expect that the bombs dropped on Saddam's Ministry of Love would be paid for by Iraqi oil? No. But as others have said above, *I* did expect (or more rightly, was lead to expect) that the economic benefits we as Americans would receive as being their "liberators" would (eventually) outweigh the costs of those bombs.
Bush (and by this I mean Rove) is very, VERY good at inference. Sentences for "...9/11...", "...Al-Qaeda..." and "...Saddam..." being back to back in countless speeches. Did he ever *SAY* they were connected? No. Did he repeatedly infer that they were, absol-fucking-lutly! But that's not the same as catching him in a lie, now is it? No, no it is not.
Funny, but Clinton's Iraq approach seems to have been much more effective (in hindsight). There were no WMDs, now were there? Saddam was completely isolated and more or less starved of funds (save the Aussies and their oil-for-wheat scandal going on right now).
More then anything, Bush has been a divider. Half the country hates him, half loves to re-elect him. He has started the first global holy war in more then a century. He has swelled the ranks of terrorists. He has burned thru all of the global pro-American sediment we enjoyed in the days following 9/11. He has stressed that we do not have to follow the Geneva conventions!? Freedom of speech has been limited during his tenure. Check and balances have been avoided (some, like former president Carter say illegally) at his explicate direction. Hehaslied (or changed his criteria, if you want to spin it that way). He has spent nearly a trillion (that's with a 'T') more then his predecessor ($400+ billion surpluses turned into $400+ billion deficits). By the time he leaves office, he will have added more then 3 trillion to the national debt (and that's being generous, it'll probably be nearly 4, or just about double when he started).
Now, this is a bit unfair as he was at the helm while America suffered one of it's most high profile disasters, and more money would have been spent by anyone in the office at the time. But for a man who comes from a party that believes in small government and smaller government spending, he has done most certainly the opposite (but Halliburton is up 10 fold).
This part of American history will be looked back upon in the same way the McCarthy trials are, with a moral disgust and the question of how in the hell could that have been let to happen. We used to make fun of the Russians for "papers please" for travel within their own country, and were appalled that this African dictator or that Eastern European police state were violating the Geneva conventions, and said "that would NEVER happen here" when news reports told of countries who lock up their own citizens without trial and without charge. That was 1980-1990's America, yet in America 2k...
...or that we would pay for it with Iraqi oil exports See the bottom section of this page. I guess Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and State Department Official Alan Larson were speaking for themselves and not for the Administration.
He never intended to take oil from Iraq... Indeed.
Patent things with clear prior art. Like a sibling post pointed out, patent absolutly the worst shit you can think of. Better yet, patent things in wide use. Not only will (should) it be looked highly upon, it'll help take down the shitty ass system. Be a mole!
You are so very right! My father is a financial moron (case in point: he used his expense account check, meant to pay off his ~19% credit card bill, to pay off his ~8% car loan). I have learned many things from his exquisitely bad examples, and this is one of the major ones. My wife and I have a paid off house (last payment was made on my 27th birthday), all of our cars are paid off, credit cards are paid in full at the end of every month.
Sure, we could "afford" the huge house, BMW, boat, hot tub, vacation property... but I'd much rather have my freedom (besides, we're saving up to get those things). Should the time ever arise, I could tell my work to shove it and not even have to think twice about it. My wife could do the same thing on the same day and not even have to think twice about it. Absolute worst case, welfare would more then cover all of our day-to-day costs (thanks to no house payment, no debts).
And we are nothing special. We are not from old money (though we both have 4 year degrees and good paying jobs), we've earned all of this ourselves. We simply realize that "It's only $5 for a Starbucks" can quickly add up to THOUSANDS of dollars a year (hell, just ask Starbucks! There's a reason they can afford to put one on every corner...). We feel that sort of discretionary income is best applied to home loans or car loans or savings accounts. Course, you could say "But you need to LIVE!" and we do! We've been on 4 overseas, and 3 domestic vacations in the last year. How!? No house payment, my friend. No car payment, just the credit card (which is mostly extraneous bullshit that could be dropped in hard times) and home owners-related bills.
For the love of [insert deity of preference here]... you spend at least 1/3 of every week day in your job. If you hate it, then the second you wake up, you are loathing having to go into that place again. When you get home, you are loathing that you have to go into that place again tomorrow. Come Friday afternoon, you are loathing that you have to go into that place again come Monday.
Gee-whiz... do you think that affects the rest of your life in any measurable way? Does the fact that your driving your new BMW to that place make it more palatable? Does your huge house with the huge screen TV make it easier to commence with the daily loathing in the mornings/afternoons/weekends? We'll get all of those things in due time, and when we have them, they will not be trapping us into a life filled with many material things and nothing much else. We will own them, they will not own us!
One could argue that because of the Afghan and Iraq wars, all the focus for the "terrorists" is on/in the middle east. Now while I'll generally agree with this assertion, it can also be said that because of the Iraq war, there are far more "terrorists" to be afraid of.
At this point, I agree with one of my fellow responders - I'm now more afraid of the government then of the "terrorists". Although, this is only very shortly followed by my fear of the "American people".
For example - the president institutes a secret spying campaign on the American people that is expressly forbidden by the law (as well as known by NSA agents as "it's something that we all know you just don't do") that was designed to avoid all checks and balances (in this case, judicial oversight). Now, the idea of "checks and balances" is a central tenant of the founding fathers vision of what was to become America. This is something that I was taught in primary school. And yet, when one of the major American news organization did a poll on if the president should have gotten warrants (read: judicial oversight) in this campaign, only 56% said that he should have (I could only find this story in the Google cache which claims only 47% believe he should have gotten warrants - far scarier).
That right there scared the living shit out of me! Only 56% (or 47%) of the (responding) population has a sense that the idea of an Executive with unchecked power is a bad idea!?!?
I'm a Californian that came down to Oz just around the bubble bursting. Anyway, my wife is an Aussie so I used her for the green card. I'm making more in Oz then I ever did during the bubble years in NorCal (inflation included). Course, "I's be one of dem damned fur-en-ers" the article discusses I suppose (though I now have my Aussie citizenship), but I am most assuredly not at the bottom of the market, pay wise.
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Check my sig... I know it was a 1984 reference. To (probably) quote the President, I was merely 'contemporary-ifying' it, wrapping one joke within another (please, oh please say it is a joke and not prophetic...). W, so very obviously, has now clue what the 'truth' is so what good would a Ministry of Truth do him? Besides, reality has a well known liberal bias! And we all know the liberals are terreerists!
So, in summary: you are an idiot. BUT, least you could be President one day!
PS: That comment relating you to the current President was low, I sincerely apologize.
The Ministry of Truthiness... but we'll let it slide this time =)
<DevilsAdvocate>
Why in the hell can't we use 9/11 as any excuse what so ever to trample on the rights of terrorists who are out to destroy *us* and *our* way of life!
</DevilsAdvocate>
The true irony here is that we destroy our way of life in the reckless pursuit of these Emmanuel Goldsteins; Warrantless spying on Americans by an agency barred in its charter from having any domestic operations, America joining the ranks of countries who disregard the Geneva frickin' Conventions, Citizens - foreign and domestic - held (up to) indefinitely and without charge, etc, etc.
Mission Accomplished, indeed.
I can see parallels between this 9/11 bullshit that the current admin is doing and what Israel has been doing for decades... using a true tragedy against its people (9/11 and the holocaust respectively) as an excuse to visit like tragedies (or worse) on their enemies. And once again, the true irony here is that as recipients of said tragedies... we should know better. Having experienced these atrocities ourselves first hand we should be the last peoples of the world to visit like tragedies on others. And yet... it seems like we both use these events as a sort of carte blanch to do what we will.
Pathetic.
One of the many, MANY hazards with this would be having to buy a supported printer, supported network card, etc... as 3rd party software (and there by hardware) is excluded by definition.
As another poster has mentioned, wouldn't a LiveCD suffice?
If you'd like to get a feel for Linux before installing, try out Mepis (which I'm pretty sure is a LiveCD) or Knoppix (which is not very polished, but does give you a KDE desktop to play with - but Ubuntu is leagues better eye-candy/usability wise).
There is Kubuntu, but it doesn't have Gnome at all, which will eventually cause you problems. You can install Kubuntu then Gnome (which is what I did), but I'd suggest Ubuntu + KDE (as I had to fiddle to get all the necessary parts of Gnome installed under Kubuntu). Then run Automatrix and you've got a fully functional system ready to go.
I started out with SuSE 9.3 (a buddy of mine at work installed it for me). Then within a few weeks 10.0 was out and we did a fresh install. SuSE took a bit of hand holding to get "up and running" (decess for DVDs, mp3 decoding, etc - PackMan is your friend). After playing around in SuSE for a few months (including getting VMware running, then attempting unsuccessfully to install Xandros and Linspire, but successfully getting Win2k running), I got my wife a new laptop (same model as mine with SuSE) and decided to try Kubuntu out.
Frankly for new Linux converts, (k)Ubuntu rocks. The weird issues I have on my SuSE laptop's Synaptic touchpad do not occur under (k)Ubuntu, and it correctly recognized the widescreen monitor (SuSE didn't). Updating is a breeze - just last night I updated her system... 10% of her packages needed to be updated (1500-ish IIRC) and it took a grand total of 25-30 minutes including a kernel update!
I was about to go from SuSE 10.0 to (k)Ubuntu when 10.1 was released a few weeks ago. So I though what the hell and did an update. 10.1 is nice, but it's got some MAJOR issues - the autoupdate, well doesn't, my ATI Drivers no-go-no-mo, Azureus and eventually kTorrent stopped working despite repeated program reinstalls... Basically 10.1 is not for you (or me).
I'll be installing (k)Ubuntu on my laptop this weekend.
I've gotta say, after a bit of a teething process (a good 4-6 weeks of Google searches to get "simple" shit to work, like my ATI drivers, VMware, etc) I'm sooo very much more happy under (k)Ubuntu (even under SuSE 10.0, which is good, just more fiddly)! That 25-30 minute update I mentioned above was while I was surfing the web with 15-20 tabs open in Firefox with the system being responsive the entire time. You just don't get that under Windows!
Good luck on the migration! And if you need help, I'll toss as much your way as I can (being a 4 month old Linux n00b myself).
Common /.! Why was I the only one to think of this!! Alright, everyone hand over their nerd cards... NOW (and just to avoid any questions - no, handing over your nerd cards DOES NOT entitle to you re-aquire your man cards).
sig says it all...
But really, I must agree with another poster (AC or no): "...it's becoming a predictable reality that corporations prefer to litigate rather than innovate."
Ok, I know that patents can take a while to get thru the maze that is the US patent office, and I also know of submarine patents, but does Prior Art mean anything anymore?
Wow, and here I thought I'd ever be convinved to be against gun control... Darwinism by personal choices... I LIKE IT!!
With this, I (almost) always get "If it's red, you stop. Green, you go." and which point I interrupt "And yellow (or orange for you Aussies out there)." It's about here that they start to think about it. Then I ask "What if it's raining?" quickly followed by "What if it's the first rain of the year?" and shortly thereafter followed by "What if you see someone else running the light in front of you?" I then explain that if I were writing a program to do something as "simple" as deciding if it's safe to go thru a traffic light, I'd have to think of ALL of these issues, plus everything else that could ever possibility happen while traversing an intersection. If I manage to miss something, it becomes a "bug" in that program.
In my experience, people pretty much "get it" with this analogy. Course, YMMV...
...or "touch wood" for you Aussies out there...
Your comment is going straight into my quotes collection. Well put, well put.
Sorry, I was responding only to this statement, not the FA. So frankly, I was off topic.
But one could also agrue... just becasue you let the dog walk doesn't mean you can't yank back on the chain every once in a while to remind them who's boss >=)
Exactly how is that something a "good" person/group would do?
Lets look at the play by play... An individual makes a comment about Iraqi oil was meant to, in one way or another, pay for the "war"/its repercussions which hasn't seemed to have happened. You comment that no one ever made that claim. I enter the conversation, simply referencing a number of Administration quotes on the matter. Enter your first personal attack ("look at things with a rational eye" and "I would certainly hesitate to think that Bill Clinton would have been so cruel as to steal money from another country!"). I never made mention of "stealing" or "cruel"ity, I simply pointed out that you were in error in your original post (which was "I don't remember Bush ever saying [...] that we would pay for it with Iraqi oil exports"). I took "it" to mean "reconstruction", not "war", I guess you meant "it" differently.
I then explained that *I* understood these comments to mean "reconstruction" (or at least not "war") at the time. I then pointed out that reconstruction efforts have not seemed to be a focal point of the Administration (which is a point you asserted - "...That is Bush's BABY right there, he's snuggling Iraq, trying to give them a good home...."). I then allowed you to take me off the main topic and down the road of the Clinton administration, which quickly became a pissing match of presidents (course I didn't sing Clinton's praises, I just referenced some of W's... shortcomings). I then ceded the point, stating "Now, this is a bit unfair as he was at the helm while America suffered one of it's most high profile disasters, and more money would have been spent by anyone in the office at the time.".
Now I show my cards... My basic belief is that W. is doing more harm then good, and that the America of today is (in my personal view) not the America was was shown to love.
Now it gets interesting. You begin to put words into my mouth ("You have inferred that Bush is just about the worst person on earth" you asserted that, not I), pose untrue statements ("The only person making inferences here is you.", "...you can't offer any support for that argument." - an argument you imagined), and personal attacks ("You sound like John Kerry, campaign hero.", "...yet the OBVIOUSNESS of everything still isn't getting into your skull", "You're not even a very smart liberal man, why bother?", and "You're just some ignorant schmuck."). Then, after you created an argument out of this air and insulted me over it, you claim victory ("Some guys can hold their ground, but I've reduced you to this? Sad."). Um, dude, that was your ground you were holding. Holier, meat Thou.
Now you have won, because you drag me down to your level. I address the points you pulled from thin air and defended them (well ok then, I guess "You're just some ignorant schmuck." was more truth then personal attack). Now, that was stupid.
Now you continue to create arguments out of this air ("nutrageous (sic) conspiracy theories" - I quoted the Administration for the most part, if you see conspiracy theories in those quotes, then they are yours, *not* mine) and frankly, make shit up ("You'd rather sit around with your buddies smoking pot and talking about the temperature that steel girders melt at."). Yo, if you think there was something fishy about the girders, again, your theory, not mine. And as for pot, I've never partaken as I am afraid I may enjoy it. The last thing I wanna do with my life is waste it as a pothead, but thank's for asking.
As for "This is the first National Development Strategy produced by a democratically elected government of Iraq.", where is the reference to the reconstruction plan that preceded the one drawn up by the Iraqis? Granted, I didn't ask that question, but that is what I was getting at. Was there an original plan? Or was there a 2 year and 1.5-ish month period where there was no previous plan in place to disseminate the funds authorized by Congress? Now this is an absurd question, there must have been. But as I referenced articles to the
I had no idea I was also "U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky, a Chief Deputy Democratic Whip" (as referenced in the GGP post), I guess it was me on my U.S. Representative web site that compiled that list of quotes from the administration. Otherwise, if I wasn't also Jan, then I wouldn't have been "The only person making inferences...". Nevermind the fact that I am also obviously slashdot user "NMerriam (15122)", as it was s/he who made the original comment. Damn, I must be schizophrenic. Thanks for the info!
You have inferred that Bush is just about the worst person on earth
Actually, no. I have simply inferred (to you and you alone I guess, as it was not my original intent) the W "is just about the worst [president] on earth". It that case, I'd have to agree with myself (but which myself? the Jan myself, or the NMerriam myself? Fuck, this is confusing).
which you know isn't true
Actually, none of the me's are positive about that point.
and you can't offer any support for that argument
(Neverminding the fact that that was not *my* argument) You are so right, I offered absolutely no support for that argument what-so-ever. Silly me, I thought we were talking about W's (and HIS administrations) references to the Iraqi's footing part of the bill. I apologize. Excellent use of the NeoCon-ish-ness "demean your critics, divert the debate and ignore the issues", well played!
I have showed you concrete numbers, yet the OBVIOUSNESS of everything still isn't getting into your skull.
To paraphrase W (and yes, I lived in Texas) - "There's an old saying in Tennessee... well, it's an old saying in Texas, I believe also in Tennessee. Actions [pauses] speak louder then [pauses] government documentation on a National Development Strategy authored more then 2 years after the invasion was 'complete'". Shouldn't that have been done BEFORE the invasion? Or at least very soon there after? Or am I a "dick" to assume some leadership in a war that "we" "choose".
Have there been elections? Yes. Have they represented the population? Depends on if your a Sunni, Kurd or Shiite. We've killed 30,000 of them (W's numbers, not mine), is that considered progress? Guess that depends on if your PWT, KKK, or NeoCon.
You're not even a very smart liberal man, why bother?
I enjoy a bit of intellectual masturbation every once in a while. Besides, since I don't go to church, I don't have a clergy thinking for me, so I guess that makes me more dumber two.
Some guys can hold their ground, but I've reduced you to this? Sad.
Let's take score, shall we?
You referenced 1 document authored by the Republic of Iraq, Iraqi Strategic Review Board, Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation to support your position.
I referenced the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Associated Press/Ex-President Jimmy Carter, The Washington Post, CNN, San Francisco Gate, and U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky's website (which itself references NYT, Reuters, The Washington Post, House Budget Committee, Congressional Testimony, CNBC, White House Press Briefings, House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplem
Of course, the rebuilding effort was never a high priority for W.
Bush (and by this I mean Rove) is very, VERY good at inference. Sentences for "...9/11...", "...Al-Qaeda..." and "...Saddam..." being back to back in countless speeches. Did he ever *SAY* they were connected? No. Did he repeatedly infer that they were, absol-fucking-lutly! But that's not the same as catching him in a lie, now is it? No, no it is not.
Funny, but Clinton's Iraq approach seems to have been much more effective (in hindsight). There were no WMDs, now were there? Saddam was completely isolated and more or less starved of funds (save the Aussies and their oil-for-wheat scandal going on right now).
More then anything, Bush has been a divider. Half the country hates him, half loves to re-elect him. He has started the first global holy war in more then a century. He has swelled the ranks of terrorists. He has burned thru all of the global pro-American sediment we enjoyed in the days following 9/11. He has stressed that we do not have to follow the Geneva conventions!? Freedom of speech has been limited during his tenure. Check and balances have been avoided (some, like former president Carter say illegally) at his explicate direction. He has lied (or changed his criteria, if you want to spin it that way). He has spent nearly a trillion (that's with a 'T') more then his predecessor ($400+ billion surpluses turned into $400+ billion deficits). By the time he leaves office, he will have added more then 3 trillion to the national debt (and that's being generous, it'll probably be nearly 4, or just about double when he started).
Now, this is a bit unfair as he was at the helm while America suffered one of it's most high profile disasters, and more money would have been spent by anyone in the office at the time. But for a man who comes from a party that believes in small government and smaller government spending, he has done most certainly the opposite (but Halliburton is up 10 fold).
This part of American history will be looked back upon in the same way the McCarthy trials are, with a moral disgust and the question of how in the hell could that have been let to happen. We used to make fun of the Russians for "papers please" for travel within their own country, and were appalled that this African dictator or that Eastern European police state were violating the Geneva conventions, and said "that would NEVER happen here" when news reports told of countries who lock up their own citizens without trial and without charge. That was 1980-1990's America, yet in America 2k...
America has lost her way.
See the bottom section of this page. I guess Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and State Department Official Alan Larson were speaking for themselves and not for the Administration.
He never intended to take oil from Iraq...
Indeed.
Patent things with clear prior art. Like a sibling post pointed out, patent absolutly the worst shit you can think of. Better yet, patent things in wide use. Not only will (should) it be looked highly upon, it'll help take down the shitty ass system. Be a mole!
Sure, we could "afford" the huge house, BMW, boat, hot tub, vacation property... but I'd much rather have my freedom (besides, we're saving up to get those things). Should the time ever arise, I could tell my work to shove it and not even have to think twice about it. My wife could do the same thing on the same day and not even have to think twice about it. Absolute worst case, welfare would more then cover all of our day-to-day costs (thanks to no house payment, no debts).
And we are nothing special. We are not from old money (though we both have 4 year degrees and good paying jobs), we've earned all of this ourselves. We simply realize that "It's only $5 for a Starbucks" can quickly add up to THOUSANDS of dollars a year (hell, just ask Starbucks! There's a reason they can afford to put one on every corner...). We feel that sort of discretionary income is best applied to home loans or car loans or savings accounts. Course, you could say "But you need to LIVE!" and we do! We've been on 4 overseas, and 3 domestic vacations in the last year. How!? No house payment, my friend. No car payment, just the credit card (which is mostly extraneous bullshit that could be dropped in hard times) and home owners-related bills.
For the love of [insert deity of preference here]... you spend at least 1/3 of every week day in your job. If you hate it, then the second you wake up, you are loathing having to go into that place again. When you get home, you are loathing that you have to go into that place again tomorrow. Come Friday afternoon, you are loathing that you have to go into that place again come Monday.
Gee-whiz... do you think that affects the rest of your life in any measurable way? Does the fact that your driving your new BMW to that place make it more palatable? Does your huge house with the huge screen TV make it easier to commence with the daily loathing in the mornings/afternoons/weekends? We'll get all of those things in due time, and when we have them, they will not be trapping us into a life filled with many material things and nothing much else. We will own them, they will not own us!
One could argue that because of the Afghan and Iraq wars, all the focus for the "terrorists" is on/in the middle east. Now while I'll generally agree with this assertion, it can also be said that because of the Iraq war, there are far more "terrorists" to be afraid of.
At this point, I agree with one of my fellow responders - I'm now more afraid of the government then of the "terrorists". Although, this is only very shortly followed by my fear of the "American people".
For example - the president institutes a secret spying campaign on the American people that is expressly forbidden by the law (as well as known by NSA agents as "it's something that we all know you just don't do") that was designed to avoid all checks and balances (in this case, judicial oversight). Now, the idea of "checks and balances" is a central tenant of the founding fathers vision of what was to become America. This is something that I was taught in primary school. And yet, when one of the major American news organization did a poll on if the president should have gotten warrants (read: judicial oversight) in this campaign, only 56% said that he should have (I could only find this story in the Google cache which claims only 47% believe he should have gotten warrants - far scarier).
That right there scared the living shit out of me! Only 56% (or 47%) of the (responding) population has a sense that the idea of an Executive with unchecked power is a bad idea!?!?
Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!
I'm a Californian that came down to Oz just around the bubble bursting. Anyway, my wife is an Aussie so I used her for the green card. I'm making more in Oz then I ever did during the bubble years in NorCal (inflation included). Course, "I's be one of dem damned fur-en-ers" the article discusses I suppose (though I now have my Aussie citizenship), but I am most assuredly not at the bottom of the market, pay wise.
Or did Kevin Collins of Microsoft Corp. not have a first born child to offer up to the IP gods?
http://www.thesundaymail.news.com.au/common/story_ page/0,5936,16855046%255E903,00.html
http://www.cryptomundo.com/bigfoot-report/australi an-mystery-cat/
http://www.google.com/search?q=Gippsland+feral+cat +Engel&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a& rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official