I think you need to do more listening. You seem to have learned about the Republican party from their enemies.
(1) Bush may have speech impediments, but so did Enoch and Moses. If you take the time to listen to Bush's message and see what he things and he feels, you'd be surprised at how absolutely brilliant he is. Instead, you focus on his speech impediment and you can't get into his message.
(2) Sure, let Ashcroft speak. Maybe he can teach you a thing or two about real justice, how to end the racial divide and the cultural divide in America, how we can really change the tide of the sickening plague of divorce and marital problems and hopefully encourage people to get and stay married for the right reasons. I believe Ashcroft is one of the great visionaries on the cultural / religious debates. He is redefining what it means to be a religious, yet tolerant and just, public official.
You have no idea what the Republican party stands for, because you get all your information second-hand. We stand for racial equality. We stand for the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. We worked to get his ideas implemented - it was the Democrats who obstructed us in trying to end segregation. We stand for now trying to get the minority populations on equal footing with the majority and successful minority population, by encouraging them to start their own businesses and own their own homes, and by learning how to manage their own life so that they are independent of the government and can get along on their own.
We stand for women's rights. That was one of the reasons why we invaded Afghanistan. One of our priorities is to encourage a society in the middle east where women aren't animals but are citizens with every right a man has. We believe in protecting the family so that women can live in a postivie environment, and that if women choose, they can stay home and raise their children and teach them whatever they want to teach them without impedence from government schools.
We stand for educational freedom. If you are poor, you end up with no choice but to attend the local public school. We want to change that. We believe that especially the poor and disadvantaged deserve a chance to get a better education. We believe that government shouldn't force them into a particular school, especially if that school is failing. Instead, give them a choice. Let them go to the local Catholic school, or private school, and let them have the same access to education that rich Democrats enjoy.
We stand for the end of Government tyrannyin the private industry. For too long, government has been forcing its hand and making private individuals do things that make no sense and has a negative effect. Why not let private individuals figure things out on their own? Why do we chain them down with endless, contradictory regulations? We believe that the people in the United States are far more intelligent than we have given them credit. Free the people, and let them take the credit for their work, rather than taxing them to death and implementing expensive, useless and corrupt government programs.
I'd say that the GOP isn't actively looking for protestors, nobody wants to get in the middle of that, certainly not the president. If things got out of hand, the last thing you'd want to see is protestors getting shot with live ammunition in order to protect the president.
However, I will give it to you that the Republican theme is "The left-wing nut jobs have taken over the Democrat party and unless you vote for Bush, they are going to take over our country as well." The Republicans are actively trying to get Kerry to come out on the air and say, "I was in Cambodia. No, I wasn't. Yes, I was." or "I support the war. But I'm against it. But I support it." They don't have to try very hard though with a nut job like Kerry. (Did you know that he though he was vice-president of the intelligence committee?)
I do encourage people who are dissatisfied with Bush to vote. Vote to your heart's content. But vote only once, and only if you are legally allowed to vote. I want you to feel that you had a voice in getting Bush reelected.
You know, what you see in others is a projection of what you truly think of yourself.
The Democrat party has proven itself to be wacked out in a big way - just look at what they accuse Bush of doing.
It's interesting to note that Republicans approach Democrats as if they are reasonable, intelligent human beings. We try to reason with you and come to a reasonable compromise. It frustrates us to no end see that you are unwilling to hear our arguments, or unwilling to share the foundation for yours. People like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry confuse us. Why would someone do the things they do? It makes absolutely no sense to me or most people in the party.
I am a strong supporter of the Republican party. I canvas my neighborhood, hang out with the candidates, and am quite familiar with pretty much everyone I am going to vote for. I've worked with the people that work in these organizations. The Republican party (at least in my corner that I can see) is the absolutely most honest and up-front party I have ever seen. They don't do things like this. They just go out and say what they think.
I know that sounds funny, but it's true. The things that the candidates say to people like me is exactly what they say to the news or in speeches in public or in debates. They don't change their story or position based on their audience.
The other part of your post is the insinuation that Bush would manipulate the alert level based on political expediency. How do I respond to that? It's like saying, "Bush is an alien from Jupiter who has come to eat our babies and rape our women." The charge is so outrageous and so wild that it goes beyond comprehension why anyone would think that.
But here is logical proof that you are absurd in your insinuation. There are literally thousands of people who know what goes into making the decision to raise or lower the level. I'd say about half aren't Bush supporters - they are just doing their job. (If you believe that everyone in the administration, CIA, Homeland Security, military, and FBI are Bush supporters, then you live in a fairy-world.) If there was any evidence of Bush arbitrarily raising or lowering the terror level, then it would come out in the news right away. But there isn't. So there's no whistle-blowers, because there's nothing to blow the whistle on.
This is just like the assertion made by some democrat senators (the whacko kind, like Kennedy, Rockefeller, et al) that Bush pressured intelligence agencies to produce evidence justifying a war in Iraq. If Bush had done so, you think just one or maybe more of the hundreds of officers interrogated would've said so. Instead, they all said the exact opposite. They all said, in general, "Our orders were to find the truth, even if it means finding evidence contrary. We were not pressured by anyone from the administration to produce a specific kind of evidence or to falsify our reports. Our only pressure was to get more evidence and to get more accurate evidence - even if it was contrary to what Bush supposedly wanted."
If there was just one agent who had been pressured by the administration, you'd think you'd know his name by now. But there isn't. Because there wasn't.
I was just going to mark you a troll but then I realized that you are an idiot. The best way to deal with idiots is to expose them. At least on my side of the aisle, we rely on logic, and we don't name-call without justification. Your side has been calling my side Nazis, terrorists, baby killers, etc, without any justification. So this may come as a surprise that I have real evidence to back up my claim that you're an idiot.
(a) Saddam used WMD against his own people and against Iran and possibly against our troops in Iraq in Desert Storm. But I guess the dead bodies and the sick troops isn't evidence of WMD. Maybe the tooth fairy killed them, right?
(b) Saddam himself admitted to having WMD and signed a treaty declaring that he had them and that he would get rid of them. The purpose of the inspection was not to find out if he had them, but for Saddam to prove to the rest of the world that he followed through. Saddam was supposed to show the world evidence that he kept his end of the bargain. Instead, he played games calling the investigators "spies" (DUH!) and refusing to abide by the terms he agreed to. Violation of a peace treaty is just cause for war in and of itself.
But I guess that signing a treaty is meaningless, at least is was for the Soviets (RIP). Over here, we believe that treaties and contracts and words mean things, and those meanings don't change over time.
(c) I guess the mobile chemical and biological labs aren't evidence of WMD. The fact that they were spotless doesn't trouble you? How many did he drive out of the country? Or do you refuse to see the evidence here too?
(d) Stockpiles of Uranium yellow-cake and evidence of purchases of yellow-cake from Nigeria were discovered. Even though Iraq has no civil nuclear program, and yellow-cake is used for building weapons or building reactors, I guess this isn't evidence of a nuclear weapon program.
(e) Libya had a nuclear weapons program. That took the intelligence community by surprise, at least the people that got out of the community before 2002. You'll note that Libya hadn't been acquiring yellow-cake, that Libya hadn't been buying equipment, and that Libya certainly had no reason to build up a nuclear program. They have given up on this whole "Hey, let's blow up Israel and America thing!"a long time ago because Khaddafi realized how futile it was long ago. So where did the program come from?
If you were a terrorist dictator in a country like... say Iraq, and you had to hide a whole bunch of nuclear material and equipment, where would you hide it?
1. In your palaces. No, that's not any good, they'll find it right away, and they'll take it away.
2. Above ground somewhere in your country? No, that's no good. They'll scour the entire country, even if it takes them years.
3. Below ground somewhere in your country? No, that's no good either, they'll find it eventually.
4. In a neighboring country? Which one? Iran? No, we hate them and US is going to invade them one day anyway. Syria? No, they'll invade them one day soon, and they're a bunch of wimps anyway. Libya? Hey, there's an idea. Libya is kind of neutral, and the US will never go invading them, and we don't really have any ties with Libya, so who'd expect that?
Go ahead and ignore the evidence. It's your neck you are putting in the noose. I've watched the news quite carefully and I've seen reports of underground, operating nuclear breeder reactors. But the news never hit the mainstream. I've heard of stockpiles of those artillery shells filled with sarin and other nasties. But the news never hit the mainstream. I've seen reports of missiles and rockets and all kinds of stuff that have been marked by inspectors as "must destroy", but they weren't.
I imagine President Bush is sitting on the intelligence and evidence, waiting to pull it all out at the most opportune time. Most likely this will be an October surprise. As you run around yelling that "THERE'S NO WMD IN IRAQ
If Western civil society had simply condemned the act, given the Taliban 30 days to deliver the criminals and been very careful to not kill a single innocent civilian, Al Quaeda would have been ostracised by their own support base.
We did. We said to the world: If you fund the terrorists, if you harbor the terrorists, you are our enemies. We told Afghanistan specifically: You have X amount of time to stop supporting Al Quaeda and deliver us the terrorists we know you are harboring. If you don't we will depose you and set up our own government.
We gave Saddam Hussein more than enough time to stop funding the Israel bombings. We gave him time to come clean. The inspectors went in not to find the WMD, but to check off that Saddam did what he said he'd do.
And force does solve the problem. The problem areas of the world - Ireland/GB, Isreal/Palestine, and America/Middle East (until 9/11) were areas were we exercised constraint.
IRA tumbled when Bush came out and said, "We will fight all terrorists, including you." They counted their cards, and realized that US Marines vs. IRA and IRA loses.
The terrorist networks in the Middle East are severely hampered. Their funding has been cut. They can't speak to each other because they are all worried each other is a mole. We had the central communication authority, and we were watching them like ants in a glass colony.
One thing to think about is when you go in for the final kill, the animal / person / organization goes into its final struggle, where it puts everything on the line and holds nothing back. This is the "tooth & nail" part. You know you have your enemy against the wall when they are acting out of desperation and they no longer strategize or think but react, react, react, taking bigger and bigger risks.
The Muqti Al Sadr people in Najaf are bringing up the third string soldiers to fight the Americans and Iraqi forces. They have lost over 300 to heavy fighting, and no Americans were killed! Now Al Sadr is trying to negotiate, and all because he has no way out.
The Saddam sympathizers and Al Quaeda agents in Iraq have been acting quite illogically recently. You think the beheadings are because everybody enjoys a good beheading? No, it's a last ditch efforts, and it doesn't work on countries like the US and South Korea.
Sidenote:
I pray for the people who dare stand against the South Korean soldiers. These are soldiers trained in millenia of fighting with Japan and China, schooled in advanced tactics and strategy that you can barely imagine, and totally devoted to winning a war by making the other guy die horribly for their cause. Ask any American what the South Koreans were doing in Vietnam, and what the Vietnamese would do when they heard South Koreans were in the area. You will quickly feel sympathy for any force who has to face that. (Hint: Imagine a culture of war that developed in response to an invasion every ten or so years from the Japanese.)
Back to the point, look at the Democratic party. They are on their last legs! They have pulled out all the stops for the Kerry campaign, because this year they are going to lose even more seats in congress, even more state legislatures, andt he presidency again. They are quickly becoming marginalized. The liberals in the nation are bordering rebellion becaues they have their backs against the wall and there is no way out.
Bush's response is totally appropriate. In fact, John Kerry admitted he would do the same thing Bush did, even with the information he has today. When you show strength, and execute strength, against your enemy, and you make it a point to annihilate them, sure, they get upset, but when you win, you have real, lasting peace because you have no antagonists.
Now, as far as genocide, is it appropriate? Let's imagine a town full of Osamas, all brain-washed to believe that the white man is the devil incarnate, and everything he says is evil, and killing the white man
Why does the above get moderated as insightful? Bush didn't vote for the Patriot Act. John Kerry did. Bush didn't declare war on Iraq, on Terrorism, on Afghanistan. John Kerry did.
The president can't write law, the president can only stamp the laws that congress writes. He has to do the best he can with what he is given by congress.
Why did you get marked funny? This has been a critical point in Bush's plan.
The Iraq war and the Afghanistan conflict are a training arena for the world's army for when we storm North Korea. Did you notice the second largest army in Iraq is now South Korea and no longer Britain? Humm... 1 + 1 = ?
Imagine a large, well-trained, peaceful army in Iraq. That would be two large, well-trained peaceful armies in the area. Imagine how much effect they will have, even with no American soldiers within 2,000 miles!
With these armies in place, it will free up soldiers from places like, I don't know, South Korea, Saudi Arabia (which are now stationed in Kuwait and Iraq) and Europe. We will either be able to bring our troops home, or bring them to bear effectively on hot targets in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
I think you are comparing apples with oranges. If you look at the army or the complete military during Clinton's reign, you'll see degradation and despair. Things literally started to fall apart. I have stories from friends in the army (in particular) about how they couldn't even get body armor.
Now things are vastly different. Donald Rumsfield has totally changed the way things are done. He has closed several bases, if not by decree of congress, by moving troops out of there and consolidating working equipment. He has secured unprecedented spending and allocation of resources. He has even done something unthinkable - he has vetoed projects that just weren't in line with the new army, like the 100-ton artillery system.
The military is really like a corporation. The people up top can do a lot to shake things around, and to make things work. In this case, we have a capable cabinet that can really get things going.
I got a question for you: Do you feel sad because we lost 1,000 soldiers taking over a third world country?
It's obvious that in the future, we will be fighting more wars, not less. North Korea, Iran, Syria, and a few other countries are getting ideas and getting the tools to execute on those ideas.
We will probably never be able to secure the world completely. There will always be people who want to take us out, foreign or domestic. We have to be ready for them. We have to convince them to attack tomorrow and not today. We have to take them out if they do attack, preferrably before they attack. You've heard the phrase that freedom isn't free. It isn't. Because you have to defend that freedom. You have to give up stuff to ensure your freedom.
If you feel sad for those soldier's death, then think of this: If we spend $1 million on better equipment, and save only one more life, was it worth it? What if that life was an enemy soldier who really doesn't want to fight, but would rather go home and feed his family? What if that one life were a two year old who got confused and ran into the street? Think about that. If we can engage the enemy before they see us, if we can rain destruction on those who feel no fear, then we will win. And the more fear they feel, and the more powerful and precise our destruction, the fewer lives that will be lost.
That's why we need better, more accurate, and more deadly equipment. As long as we can send in an army, and get the job done with minimum casualties, we won't need to drop bombs. As long as we have the option of dropping expensive, accurate bombs we won't need to use the big ones. And as long as we have the big ones just in case the army and the bombs fail, we have the ultimate bargaining chip. "Oh, so you can take out my army? So you can survive my bombs? Then try and survive this." I often wonder what went through Saddam's mind as he sat there in his bunker. I wonder if he thought that we were as crazy as he was, and that we had infected him with a virus or disease or poison or that we were going to drop a nuke on him when he surfaced. That's the right kind of feeling for those types of folks.
Go back and read your Sun Tzu again. You'll see he was all about preserving life and ending war without a single casualty. That's what today's generals, at least in the US, are all about.
BUSH: Those dirty commies! I wish I could nuke them today. They all suck.
CHENEY: Have you ever thought of using Global Warming to destroy them?
BUSH: How will raising global temperatures a few degrees over the next one hundred years eradicate our enemies?
CHENEY: See, there you go again, thinking. You shouldn't do that, you know.
BUSH: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you unhappy.
CHENEY: That's okay, I forgive you... this time. But to answer your question, our research indicates that raising the global temperature just a fraction of a degree can start a new ice age and turn North Korea to a desert, all at the same time!
BUSH: What about the report that said that global warming does nothing?
CHENEY: Oh, that's hogwash. We whitewashed that until you could barely see the ink on the paper. Anyway, how about we get started?
What causes starvation and poverty is not the lack of food. There is more than enough food. It is the lack of a free market to transport that food to market efficiently.
In America, we have all kinds of systems to get the food to your dinner plate. These include the food processing and food transporting industries. Just as important is advertising and price setting. by advertising the availability of food, Americans are able to discover the rich variety of foods available.
In Kosovo and other countries, starvation is caused by the lack of a free market. Right now, terrorists threaten any free trade. Just stepping outdoors is risking your life. In other places, farmers are not allowed to grow the foods they want to and sell them at whatever price they want. People are not allowed to traffic in food trade, and are not allowed to build up processing plants to process foods. It is either terrorism, civil war, or bad policy that causes this, but the end result is all the same.
If you would really like to help the Kosovoans, send in some footsoldiers to weed out and eliminate the terrorists. Allow the people a chance to have a free election, encouraging things like civil discourse and not killing the opponent. Stabilize the security of the country first.
Next, you must enact policies that will allow the free market to thrive.
As you can see, whether or not the Coca-Cola company advertises a campaign for a contest has little bearing on the economy in Kosovo. Your comment was not only stupid, it was actually counterproductive.
There are two kinds of comments in this thread, and I'd say pretty much anywhere.
Knee-jerk reaction:
Yuck! Eating pee is bad! I wouldn't do it! Why does the government do this to their poor soldiers? I bet there is some real corruption here somewhere.
Logical:
If you are a soldier, and you are in a situation that warrants using pee to hydrate the food, I imagine that the situation is pretty dire. I'd say they are much more likely to die from lead poisoning than their own urea in this situation.
If you prefer to listen to logic, you really have to dig deep to find the kernel of truth.
A good way to do this is to apply the following criteria:
(1) Filter on dirty language. People who use dirty language can't express themselves anyway so trying to understand what they say is mostly hopeless. Usually, their thought process doesn't go beyond "eat - drink - sleep" anyway, so they have nothing to say.
(2) Filter on namecalling or conspiracy theories without evidence. These people are still stuck in the 2nd grade, and have nothing interesting to say, although their conspiracy theories are quite funny at times.
BUSH: Hey Dickie-poo! Look at this! We can get the soldiers to pee on their food and eat it!
CHENEY: HAHAHA! That's hilarious! I'll just stuff this wad of cash I stole from hardworkin' Americans in the Halliburton bank account.
BUSH: Hey, let's go invade another country next week. I pick -- this one! It's got a really funny name... Let me see... Mass... a... what's that letter?
CHENY: Hey! That's Boston, the DNC is having their convention! Let's nuke it and blame it on terrorists!
BUSH: AWESOME! Tell Condie to bring me some more water, and Collin to get my jacket and polish my shoes!
After you apply those two criteria, you should get a pretty good reading here at Slashdot, or any mailing list or public forum.
The bottom line is nobody wants it. Right now, data storage is so abundant that having twice or four times the amount of data per disk won't solve any problems. We've hit the stage in my line of work that long-term data storage is a non-issue. Suck as much data as you want and store it anywhere, we're never going to run out.
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Excuse? Bipartisan effort to dsimantle the Soviet Union? The Democrats were shouting that we were losing the war, that we shouldn't try to upset them, and that we should just settle for containment. They've been arguing this ever since WWII.
Patton was right. We should've gone in an kicked the crap out of the USSR while we had them down. MacArthur was removed from commanding the Korean conflict because he had a plan to not just conquer the North Koreans, but the Chinese and USSR as well.
When Reagan said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" how many democrats cheered him on? How many denounced him as a lunatic that was going to get us all killed?
When Reagan built up the military to unprecedented heights, forcing the USSR to try and match step and thus bankrupt their economy, where we the democrats telling him, "Right on! Sure, we have a deficit, but we can win this war if we keep it up?"
Bi-partisan effort? Reagan dragged the democrats and liberal republicans every step of the way. They pleaded with him "Stop! You're going to get us all killed!" They certainly didn't help in the victory. Don't make me laugh.
Ronald Reagan took huge, calculated risks, and he was right. That's what a leader does, and that's why he is credited with the victory over USSR.
Don't try to rewrite history.
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1.4 millions new jobs in the last 9 months.
The Fed is worrying about inflation because our economy is growing so fast.
Not since the 80's under Reagan have we seen such fast-paced growth (the 90's were a bump compared to this recovery).
Unemployment at historic lows, so low that many economists say it is an unreliable measure.
John Ashcroft hasn't eroded any freedoms. When's the last time you got investigated by him? The Partriot Act extends the same powers we had to investigate mafia and drug activities but now to terrorist activities as well. Or are you against that? I'll tell you one thing, John Ashcroft didn't vote for the Patriot Act, but John Kerry did.
For that matter, George W. Bush didn't declare war, but John Kerry did. George W. Bush doesn't have the power to declare war, only congress does.
If this nation is going down the crapper, than I condone the crapper! It sure is a lot better than when we had the dot-bomb era - remember that? We are more secure, we have more prosperity, and we have a freer society that we did before. Just open your eyes and look around and stop listening to the democrat propaganda.
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Assumptions that turned out to be false?
Go ahead and keep telling yourself that. There is an ace up Bush's sleeve that is going to blow you away. The assumptions were neither false nor unjustified.
Halliburton and Dick Cheney have absolutely no connection because once Dick Cheney was announced as VP candidate, he severed all ties, and sold all the stock at a loss. If Dick Cheney and Halliburton were really collaborating, why is Halliburton losing so much money?
1,000 lives of valiant soldiers who gave their lives defending the freedom of not only our counrty, but a country which we considered our top enemy. I am a Christian: "Greater love hath no man than he lay down his life for his brother." I am shaking, overcome with emotion at the incredible sacrifice these heroes have made. I can barely hold the tears back thinking about them.
What Iraqi civilian casualties? I have heard of a few, but nothing like the wild reports I have seen some liberal bloggers and Saddam sympathizers report. I have heard from a man who escaped Saddam who lives in Seattle. His cousin or aunt or somebody close to him was killed by a soldier. But he said that he frankly forgives the soldier. He even was willing to be a civilian casualty if it meant the freedom of his country! He broke into tears, "Allah Akbar! America Akbar! You are saving my country, and what have we done for you? How can we ever repay you?"
What about the spontaneous celebration that happened when the handover completed and Paul Bremer left Iraq? Did you hear of that? There were terrorists who literally laid down their weapons and started shouting "USA! USA!" Did you hear about that? People were singing praises to Bush and the USA and the fact that he actually did what was promised! Did you hear about that?
I do not condone the torture of prisoners of war! Have you noticed that while Saddam's torturers were rewarded, our torturers are looking at stiff prison penalties? We punish our lawbreakers!
The republican message - the victory in Iraq - the good new - is not on the front pages. It isn't on CNN. It is heard in quiet. Bush's wisdom has conquered the weapons of Saddam and broken his power structure. Now even the Iraqis who fought us in Fallujah hail us as heroes. On sinner did destroy much good. Bill Clinton, his coverups, his scandals, and his outright criminal behavior was one of the reasons quoted by Osama Bin Laden for trying to destroy America! Go read his declarations of war, it is in plain sight, usually item number two or three right after usury or interest that we condone.
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I'll tell you what inspires me about Bush.
He is a real leader. He makes tough decisions, and sometimes he has to take the unpopular choice because he believes it is the right one. I would rather have someone who follows his conscience than someone who tries to follow the winds of public opinion.
He has vision - a real plan to change America's future. His ambition of reforming the Middle East into a democratic one is so ambitious, such a huge gamble, and he took it and look at the results in just 2 short years. I would've nuked the entire subcontinent and started over, but he had the vision and the insight to turn it around.
His stance with North Korea is precisely correct. I am a Korean speaker, and I avidly follow Korean politics. He has a plan to withdraw the troops from South Korea but still defeat North Korea militarily. His plan is one of the only plans that will actually work, in my mind. I could write a book on the issues and the decisions and which ones I feel are the best but it would bore you to tears.
His core beliefs are in line with mine. You may feel that fundamental Christians are the devil. I do not. I have a personal relationship with my God, and he does too, if you look at his personal life. We are not ruled by religion, but it was the tool that woke us up.
If I were running McDonalds, and I had the chance to hire George W. Bush, I would do it in a heartbeat. He is a real leader. He inspires rather than degrades. He points the direction to go, and he is able to do things organizationally that you won't understand.
I believe that politics and religion are the same subject. How do we handle our enemies? Do we forgive them or do we blow them to smithereens? What do we do about crime? What kind of values should our leaders have? How do we solve the breakup of the family? Is it even a problem? These are all religious topics.
While the government cannot make laws favoring one institute of religion over another, we can vote in leaders of whatever religion we like.
I believe that a race between atheists and Christians is justified. That is the big question we face today. Are we a nation ruled by God, or are we ruled by Men? If by God, then we are all held accountable before Him. Our rights come from Him and not the governmnet. If by Men, then none of our rights are granted by God, but by Men, and can just as easily be revoked. If we decide to subject ourselves to God, freedom, intelligence, prosperity are the inevitable result. If we choose to subject ourselves to men, then we have only despair, captivity, and poverty to look forward to.
I believe George W. Bush has played all of you Bush-haters for a fool. He comes off as an idiot, but he is probably the greatest political genius since Ronald Reagan. You know, the Ronald Reagan that defeated the greatest enemy we ever knew? you know, the Ronald Reagan that started the decline of the democrat power structure and the rise of the conservative republican faction?
In every case where George W Bush has put blood in the water to attract the attack dogs, he has turned around to crush them. He sits there fishing for idiots to refute him, because he knows he is right all the time.
Right now, he has turned the democrat party from a party of intellectual socialists into a party of ranting lunatic extremist. For those of you who are deep into the party, look around at what has happened to your image. It has degraded so deeply that political scientists are talking about an era of republican-led government.
George W. Bush is going to go down as one of the top five presidents in our history. One hundred years in the future, the top five presidents will be:
1. George Washington 2. Abraham Lincoln 3. Ronald Reagn 4. George W. Bush 5. Franklin D. Roosevelt
Re:Similarities between democrat party, communists
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Unfortunately, the machine knocking down McCain is funded by the democrat party. Those calls made in South Carolina were not funded by George W. Bush. There were funded by prominent democrats in the area.
As far as McCain's politics, he hardly has any support from the republicans in his home state, and he is far too liberal and wishy-washy for my tastes. Most of the people I see active in the republican party feel the same way. That's why he doesn't get support.
Similarities between democrat party, communists
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Before you go mod this post down, let me summarize what I saw from outside the democrat party.
Howard Dean was the only candidate that had real support from the people. I saw it around me - people were genuinely excited about the guy. Even though I thought he was looney, misguided, etc... his supporters didn't think so and could argue about him and why they liked him. It made for some really interesting and competitive debates that I enjoyed tremendously.
I heard this fervent support on radio shows when real callers would call up. These were real callers - they weren't paid-for goons. They had a sincere desire to see Howard Dean get nominated and elected. I remember hearing more than one conservative talk show host say that the only real candidate was Howard Dean - the rest were robots or politicos who have worked their way up the ladder and now it was finally their turn. Only Howard Dean was the people's candidate.
But watch what happened to him right before the primaries started. Literally out of the blue, the most favored (by the party leadership) rose in the polls. Where were John Kerry's supporters? No one could find them. I remember Rush Limbaugh, who allowed plenty of air time each week to go to the Howard Dean supporters to debate the issues, trying to get a single sincere John Kerry supporter. At first no one called in. Then the robots with scripts called in. And then a few "I like him because he's our last hope." called in. But no real supporters!
My conclusion is that the candidate that won the primary was the candidate appointed by the leadership, not the one who was popular. Even now, we can't find true John Kerry supporters - those who support them because they are excited about him and his ideas. We instead have two classes of supporters: Paid goons who read scripts and talk like the candidate, and those who support him because he is the only hope for the Democrat party, not because he is good or anything.
As a strong, passionate christian and conservative, I was looking forward to a campaign between Bush and Dean. President Bush really inspires me, and I want him to win because I really think he is doing an awesome job. I would have loved to debate people who feel the same way. Instead, all we have to debate are a bunch of people who don't even like their candidate! There's no fun this election.
Go ahead and mod me down now, but that's the way I feel and that's what I observed even though I despise the Democrat Party.
Now for the conspiracy theories. Two years ago, in the New Jersey race for the senate, the democrat candidate got replace by someone who didn't even run in the primaries. If I were a democrat, I would be fuming. "HEY! THAT'S NOT THE GUY WE NOMINATED! WHAT THE *** ARE YOU DOING?" But that's not the way the democrat party works. It's a top-down structure. "You little people better fall in line or you're not getting anything from the soup kitchen." "We're only doing this in your best interests. Remember, you're too stupid to make these kinds of decisions so we make them for you."
And two years before, the senate candidate running against John Ashcroft, probably the most conservative candidate to run for office since the 1800's, mysteriously dies in a plane crash. Interestingly enough, several of Clinton's associates have died in plan crashes since he was elected.
One of the most notables was Ron Brown, who, during the autopsy, an X-Ray was taken by one of the physicians and used as an example for a classic gunshot to the head. He'd point out the bullet fragments and the patterns. Except the archived X-Rays went missing. He happened to get the X-Ray because he was teaching a class that week or something and he decided to use Ron Brown's X-Ray because it was the clearest example he'd ever seen.
But my point is, if you want to find corruption, look to the top of your party. Sandy Berger's recent behavior is only a small example of that.
No, the Republicans think that government shouldn't be involved in business at all. They're watching out for the little guy because maybe the little guy will want to start a software company one day too. The last thing we need is a heavily regulated software industry.
Or do you want us to end up like the drug industry, where we have to run our products through a gauntlet of underpaid, incompetent bureacrats? Would that be "fair"? Would that be looking out for the little guy?
And before you go sniping about how we can't beat Microsoft without government getting involved, take a look around. The empire is falling, and the government is not the cause of it.
I've always thought these anti-trust and monopoly gigs were just show to make people like you think the government is hard at work trying to make life "fair" and "level the playing field" when all they are trying to do is sucker you into reelecting them one more time. At least Bush has the balls to come out and shut down these kinds of cases.
Gee, I'm an American too, and I took the time to learn Korean so that when I go to Korea, we can communicate.
In fact, most of the American ex-patriots that I see speak enough Korean to get around.
I'm kinda wondering where these arrogant Americans who refuse to "do as the Romans do" really are, you know? You yourself have busted the prototype - so why perpetuate it?
And if you're going to complain about Americans who go to foreign countries but won't learn the language, why don't you complain about the foreigners who come here and won't learn English? Xenophobia works both ways.
In fact, I daresay that Americans are far more tolerant of those from different cultures than those cultures are of us! The Koreans are incredibly tolerant, but they don't go nearly as far as Americans do! (How many Americans have applied for and received Korean citizenship that weren't of Korean descent? And the inverse?)
The urban myth you cite has no numbers and no references.
I found this out:
Krakatoa spat out about 10 cubic kilometers of debris - that's 10,000,000,000 cubic meters.
In 1989, the amount of debris produced by coal-firing power plants was about 1,000,000 cubic meters.
I'd say there's a couple orders of magnitude difference there, buddy. I believe coal-firing power plants produce far more pollution than our automobiles, natural gas power plants, and nuclear power plants.
It seems like everyone is agreed: That the government shouldn't ban violent video games.
I'm here to voice an opinion against the "standard" opinion.
Parents are responsible for their kids. I don't doubt that. However, the government has taken a large part of that responsibility away from the parents. I am not allowed as a parent to do things to control my kid that were simply non-controversial 30 years ago. For instance, spanking.
I see my neighbors being dragged away by bureacrats because of unsubstantiated allegations. Somehow the opinion of a 7 year old now has more legal weight than the testimony of a grown man.
It sounds like I am arguing for less government control. Yes, I believe that is the way to go. Get the government out of our homes.
But in today's environment, the government isn't going to let up any time soon. So we ban violent video games.
Why? Because if we don't ban them, they may become a "right". And soon, I may be dragged away by bureacrats if I don't allow my children to play them.
So as long as the government is busy being a parent, we have to make sure it is doing its role properly.
If you don't want government to ban video games, then you'd better support getting government out of our homes. No more social services. No more community outreach programs. Free up the education system and return control to the community. And stop collecting taxes to pay for some crack addict living in government housing.
So you have two choices: Big government or limited government. If you support big government, I support video game bans. If you support limited government, then government can't ban video games. Can't have it both ways.
I used to work a minimum wage job back in 1994. Now I have a very hefty salary, much more than 2000%.
And a CEO won't have to lay off 100 workers to dave $2 million dollars if the tax rate is cut. He'll instead take his windfall of $X million and reinvest it in his company, which means more workers and better jobs.
Earth, a planet that some say has maintained a rich biological diversity for hundreds of millions of years, has built in mechanisms to stabilize environmental conditions!
In a shocking new report, it was discovered that perhaps this global warming thing is a bunch of nonsense. The amount of damage we do to the atmosphere is nothing compared to what the variety of stellar material, volcanic eruptions, and biological processes have done in the past several million years. After each disturbance, the earth has maintained balance by compensating for disastrous change in the chemical composition of the atmosphere. Some of these adaptive processes were geological, but some were also biological.
It's almost as if life on earth was designed or grew to accustom themselves to earth's natural environment. In fact, the biological organisms have even changed the environment to make it more habitable for other biological organisms.
Just like bacteria in the environment maintain a balance by consuming extra resources, or limiting growth due to the absence of resources, the earth as a whole behaves in a similar way. When there is too much of something, it gets consumed at a greater rate. When there is not enough, it gets consumed at a slower rate. In the end, everything has a balance that is maintained within precise criteria.
In other news, free markets really work, and are the most effective way for distributing resources fairly due to a similar process called "supply" and "demand". Also, it was discovered that profits weren't evil, and that by allowing corporations to own land and profit therefrom, the land is taken better care of and more efficient than wilderness.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you need to do more listening. You seem to have learned about the Republican party from their enemies.
(1) Bush may have speech impediments, but so did Enoch and Moses. If you take the time to listen to Bush's message and see what he things and he feels, you'd be surprised at how absolutely brilliant he is. Instead, you focus on his speech impediment and you can't get into his message.
(2) Sure, let Ashcroft speak. Maybe he can teach you a thing or two about real justice, how to end the racial divide and the cultural divide in America, how we can really change the tide of the sickening plague of divorce and marital problems and hopefully encourage people to get and stay married for the right reasons. I believe Ashcroft is one of the great visionaries on the cultural / religious debates. He is redefining what it means to be a religious, yet tolerant and just, public official.
You have no idea what the Republican party stands for, because you get all your information second-hand. We stand for racial equality. We stand for the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. We worked to get his ideas implemented - it was the Democrats who obstructed us in trying to end segregation. We stand for now trying to get the minority populations on equal footing with the majority and successful minority population, by encouraging them to start their own businesses and own their own homes, and by learning how to manage their own life so that they are independent of the government and can get along on their own.
We stand for women's rights. That was one of the reasons why we invaded Afghanistan. One of our priorities is to encourage a society in the middle east where women aren't animals but are citizens with every right a man has. We believe in protecting the family so that women can live in a postivie environment, and that if women choose, they can stay home and raise their children and teach them whatever they want to teach them without impedence from government schools.
We stand for educational freedom. If you are poor, you end up with no choice but to attend the local public school. We want to change that. We believe that especially the poor and disadvantaged deserve a chance to get a better education. We believe that government shouldn't force them into a particular school, especially if that school is failing. Instead, give them a choice. Let them go to the local Catholic school, or private school, and let them have the same access to education that rich Democrats enjoy.
We stand for the end of Government tyrannyin the private industry. For too long, government has been forcing its hand and making private individuals do things that make no sense and has a negative effect. Why not let private individuals figure things out on their own? Why do we chain them down with endless, contradictory regulations? We believe that the people in the United States are far more intelligent than we have given them credit. Free the people, and let them take the credit for their work, rather than taxing them to death and implementing expensive, useless and corrupt government programs.
I'd say that the GOP isn't actively looking for protestors, nobody wants to get in the middle of that, certainly not the president. If things got out of hand, the last thing you'd want to see is protestors getting shot with live ammunition in order to protect the president.
However, I will give it to you that the Republican theme is "The left-wing nut jobs have taken over the Democrat party and unless you vote for Bush, they are going to take over our country as well." The Republicans are actively trying to get Kerry to come out on the air and say, "I was in Cambodia. No, I wasn't. Yes, I was." or "I support the war. But I'm against it. But I support it." They don't have to try very hard though with a nut job like Kerry. (Did you know that he though he was vice-president of the intelligence committee?)
I do encourage people who are dissatisfied with Bush to vote. Vote to your heart's content. But vote only once, and only if you are legally allowed to vote. I want you to feel that you had a voice in getting Bush reelected.
This is idiotic.
You know, what you see in others is a projection of what you truly think of yourself.
The Democrat party has proven itself to be wacked out in a big way - just look at what they accuse Bush of doing.
It's interesting to note that Republicans approach Democrats as if they are reasonable, intelligent human beings. We try to reason with you and come to a reasonable compromise. It frustrates us to no end see that you are unwilling to hear our arguments, or unwilling to share the foundation for yours. People like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry confuse us. Why would someone do the things they do? It makes absolutely no sense to me or most people in the party.
I am a strong supporter of the Republican party. I canvas my neighborhood, hang out with the candidates, and am quite familiar with pretty much everyone I am going to vote for. I've worked with the people that work in these organizations. The Republican party (at least in my corner that I can see) is the absolutely most honest and up-front party I have ever seen. They don't do things like this. They just go out and say what they think.
I know that sounds funny, but it's true. The things that the candidates say to people like me is exactly what they say to the news or in speeches in public or in debates. They don't change their story or position based on their audience.
The other part of your post is the insinuation that Bush would manipulate the alert level based on political expediency. How do I respond to that? It's like saying, "Bush is an alien from Jupiter who has come to eat our babies and rape our women." The charge is so outrageous and so wild that it goes beyond comprehension why anyone would think that.
But here is logical proof that you are absurd in your insinuation. There are literally thousands of people who know what goes into making the decision to raise or lower the level. I'd say about half aren't Bush supporters - they are just doing their job. (If you believe that everyone in the administration, CIA, Homeland Security, military, and FBI are Bush supporters, then you live in a fairy-world.) If there was any evidence of Bush arbitrarily raising or lowering the terror level, then it would come out in the news right away. But there isn't. So there's no whistle-blowers, because there's nothing to blow the whistle on.
This is just like the assertion made by some democrat senators (the whacko kind, like Kennedy, Rockefeller, et al) that Bush pressured intelligence agencies to produce evidence justifying a war in Iraq. If Bush had done so, you think just one or maybe more of the hundreds of officers interrogated would've said so. Instead, they all said the exact opposite. They all said, in general, "Our orders were to find the truth, even if it means finding evidence contrary. We were not pressured by anyone from the administration to produce a specific kind of evidence or to falsify our reports. Our only pressure was to get more evidence and to get more accurate evidence - even if it was contrary to what Bush supposedly wanted."
If there was just one agent who had been pressured by the administration, you'd think you'd know his name by now. But there isn't. Because there wasn't.
I was just going to mark you a troll but then I realized that you are an idiot. The best way to deal with idiots is to expose them. At least on my side of the aisle, we rely on logic, and we don't name-call without justification. Your side has been calling my side Nazis, terrorists, baby killers, etc, without any justification. So this may come as a surprise that I have real evidence to back up my claim that you're an idiot.
... say Iraq, and you had to hide a whole bunch of nuclear material and equipment, where would you hide it?
(a) Saddam used WMD against his own people and against Iran and possibly against our troops in Iraq in Desert Storm. But I guess the dead bodies and the sick troops isn't evidence of WMD. Maybe the tooth fairy killed them, right?
(b) Saddam himself admitted to having WMD and signed a treaty declaring that he had them and that he would get rid of them. The purpose of the inspection was not to find out if he had them, but for Saddam to prove to the rest of the world that he followed through. Saddam was supposed to show the world evidence that he kept his end of the bargain. Instead, he played games calling the investigators "spies" (DUH!) and refusing to abide by the terms he agreed to. Violation of a peace treaty is just cause for war in and of itself.
But I guess that signing a treaty is meaningless, at least is was for the Soviets (RIP). Over here, we believe that treaties and contracts and words mean things, and those meanings don't change over time.
(c) I guess the mobile chemical and biological labs aren't evidence of WMD. The fact that they were spotless doesn't trouble you? How many did he drive out of the country? Or do you refuse to see the evidence here too?
(d) Stockpiles of Uranium yellow-cake and evidence of purchases of yellow-cake from Nigeria were discovered. Even though Iraq has no civil nuclear program, and yellow-cake is used for building weapons or building reactors, I guess this isn't evidence of a nuclear weapon program.
(e) Libya had a nuclear weapons program. That took the intelligence community by surprise, at least the people that got out of the community before 2002. You'll note that Libya hadn't been acquiring yellow-cake, that Libya hadn't been buying equipment, and that Libya certainly had no reason to build up a nuclear program. They have given up on this whole "Hey, let's blow up Israel and America thing!"a long time ago because Khaddafi realized how futile it was long ago. So where did the program come from?
If you were a terrorist dictator in a country like
1. In your palaces. No, that's not any good, they'll find it right away, and they'll take it away.
2. Above ground somewhere in your country? No, that's no good. They'll scour the entire country, even if it takes them years.
3. Below ground somewhere in your country? No, that's no good either, they'll find it eventually.
4. In a neighboring country? Which one? Iran? No, we hate them and US is going to invade them one day anyway. Syria? No, they'll invade them one day soon, and they're a bunch of wimps anyway. Libya? Hey, there's an idea. Libya is kind of neutral, and the US will never go invading them, and we don't really have any ties with Libya, so who'd expect that?
Go ahead and ignore the evidence. It's your neck you are putting in the noose. I've watched the news quite carefully and I've seen reports of underground, operating nuclear breeder reactors. But the news never hit the mainstream. I've heard of stockpiles of those artillery shells filled with sarin and other nasties. But the news never hit the mainstream. I've seen reports of missiles and rockets and all kinds of stuff that have been marked by inspectors as "must destroy", but they weren't.
I imagine President Bush is sitting on the intelligence and evidence, waiting to pull it all out at the most opportune time. Most likely this will be an October surprise. As you run around yelling that "THERE'S NO WMD IN IRAQ
We did. We said to the world: If you fund the terrorists, if you harbor the terrorists, you are our enemies. We told Afghanistan specifically: You have X amount of time to stop supporting Al Quaeda and deliver us the terrorists we know you are harboring. If you don't we will depose you and set up our own government.
We gave Saddam Hussein more than enough time to stop funding the Israel bombings. We gave him time to come clean. The inspectors went in not to find the WMD, but to check off that Saddam did what he said he'd do.
And force does solve the problem. The problem areas of the world - Ireland/GB, Isreal/Palestine, and America/Middle East (until 9/11) were areas were we exercised constraint.
IRA tumbled when Bush came out and said, "We will fight all terrorists, including you." They counted their cards, and realized that US Marines vs. IRA and IRA loses.
The terrorist networks in the Middle East are severely hampered. Their funding has been cut. They can't speak to each other because they are all worried each other is a mole. We had the central communication authority, and we were watching them like ants in a glass colony.
One thing to think about is when you go in for the final kill, the animal / person / organization goes into its final struggle, where it puts everything on the line and holds nothing back. This is the "tooth & nail" part. You know you have your enemy against the wall when they are acting out of desperation and they no longer strategize or think but react, react, react, taking bigger and bigger risks.
The Muqti Al Sadr people in Najaf are bringing up the third string soldiers to fight the Americans and Iraqi forces. They have lost over 300 to heavy fighting, and no Americans were killed! Now Al Sadr is trying to negotiate, and all because he has no way out.
The Saddam sympathizers and Al Quaeda agents in Iraq have been acting quite illogically recently. You think the beheadings are because everybody enjoys a good beheading? No, it's a last ditch efforts, and it doesn't work on countries like the US and South Korea.
Sidenote:
I pray for the people who dare stand against the South Korean soldiers. These are soldiers trained in millenia of fighting with Japan and China, schooled in advanced tactics and strategy that you can barely imagine, and totally devoted to winning a war by making the other guy die horribly for their cause. Ask any American what the South Koreans were doing in Vietnam, and what the Vietnamese would do when they heard South Koreans were in the area. You will quickly feel sympathy for any force who has to face that. (Hint: Imagine a culture of war that developed in response to an invasion every ten or so years from the Japanese.)
Back to the point, look at the Democratic party. They are on their last legs! They have pulled out all the stops for the Kerry campaign, because this year they are going to lose even more seats in congress, even more state legislatures, andt he presidency again. They are quickly becoming marginalized. The liberals in the nation are bordering rebellion becaues they have their backs against the wall and there is no way out.
Bush's response is totally appropriate. In fact, John Kerry admitted he would do the same thing Bush did, even with the information he has today. When you show strength, and execute strength, against your enemy, and you make it a point to annihilate them, sure, they get upset, but when you win, you have real, lasting peace because you have no antagonists.
Now, as far as genocide, is it appropriate? Let's imagine a town full of Osamas, all brain-washed to believe that the white man is the devil incarnate, and everything he says is evil, and killing the white man
Why does the above get moderated as insightful? Bush didn't vote for the Patriot Act. John Kerry did. Bush didn't declare war on Iraq, on Terrorism, on Afghanistan. John Kerry did.
The president can't write law, the president can only stamp the laws that congress writes. He has to do the best he can with what he is given by congress.
Why did you get marked funny? This has been a critical point in Bush's plan.
The Iraq war and the Afghanistan conflict are a training arena for the world's army for when we storm North Korea. Did you notice the second largest army in Iraq is now South Korea and no longer Britain? Humm... 1 + 1 = ?
Imagine a large, well-trained, peaceful army in Iraq. That would be two large, well-trained peaceful armies in the area. Imagine how much effect they will have, even with no American soldiers within 2,000 miles!
With these armies in place, it will free up soldiers from places like, I don't know, South Korea, Saudi Arabia (which are now stationed in Kuwait and Iraq) and Europe. We will either be able to bring our troops home, or bring them to bear effectively on hot targets in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
I think you are comparing apples with oranges. If you look at the army or the complete military during Clinton's reign, you'll see degradation and despair. Things literally started to fall apart. I have stories from friends in the army (in particular) about how they couldn't even get body armor.
Now things are vastly different. Donald Rumsfield has totally changed the way things are done. He has closed several bases, if not by decree of congress, by moving troops out of there and consolidating working equipment. He has secured unprecedented spending and allocation of resources. He has even done something unthinkable - he has vetoed projects that just weren't in line with the new army, like the 100-ton artillery system.
The military is really like a corporation. The people up top can do a lot to shake things around, and to make things work. In this case, we have a capable cabinet that can really get things going.
I got a question for you: Do you feel sad because we lost 1,000 soldiers taking over a third world country?
It's obvious that in the future, we will be fighting more wars, not less. North Korea, Iran, Syria, and a few other countries are getting ideas and getting the tools to execute on those ideas.
We will probably never be able to secure the world completely. There will always be people who want to take us out, foreign or domestic. We have to be ready for them. We have to convince them to attack tomorrow and not today. We have to take them out if they do attack, preferrably before they attack. You've heard the phrase that freedom isn't free. It isn't. Because you have to defend that freedom. You have to give up stuff to ensure your freedom.
If you feel sad for those soldier's death, then think of this: If we spend $1 million on better equipment, and save only one more life, was it worth it? What if that life was an enemy soldier who really doesn't want to fight, but would rather go home and feed his family? What if that one life were a two year old who got confused and ran into the street? Think about that. If we can engage the enemy before they see us, if we can rain destruction on those who feel no fear, then we will win. And the more fear they feel, and the more powerful and precise our destruction, the fewer lives that will be lost.
That's why we need better, more accurate, and more deadly equipment. As long as we can send in an army, and get the job done with minimum casualties, we won't need to drop bombs. As long as we have the option of dropping expensive, accurate bombs we won't need to use the big ones. And as long as we have the big ones just in case the army and the bombs fail, we have the ultimate bargaining chip. "Oh, so you can take out my army? So you can survive my bombs? Then try and survive this." I often wonder what went through Saddam's mind as he sat there in his bunker. I wonder if he thought that we were as crazy as he was, and that we had infected him with a virus or disease or poison or that we were going to drop a nuke on him when he surfaced. That's the right kind of feeling for those types of folks.
Go back and read your Sun Tzu again. You'll see he was all about preserving life and ending war without a single casualty. That's what today's generals, at least in the US, are all about.
BUSH: Those dirty commies! I wish I could nuke them today. They all suck.
CHENEY: Have you ever thought of using Global Warming to destroy them?
BUSH: How will raising global temperatures a few degrees over the next one hundred years eradicate our enemies?
CHENEY: See, there you go again, thinking. You shouldn't do that, you know.
BUSH: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you unhappy.
CHENEY: That's okay, I forgive you... this time. But to answer your question, our research indicates that raising the global temperature just a fraction of a degree can start a new ice age and turn North Korea to a desert, all at the same time!
BUSH: What about the report that said that global warming does nothing?
CHENEY: Oh, that's hogwash. We whitewashed that until you could barely see the ink on the paper. Anyway, how about we get started?
BUSH: What do I do?
CHENEY: First, we need to raise oil prices...
You posted a knee-jerk reaction.
What causes starvation and poverty is not the lack of food. There is more than enough food. It is the lack of a free market to transport that food to market efficiently.
In America, we have all kinds of systems to get the food to your dinner plate. These include the food processing and food transporting industries. Just as important is advertising and price setting. by advertising the availability of food, Americans are able to discover the rich variety of foods available.
In Kosovo and other countries, starvation is caused by the lack of a free market. Right now, terrorists threaten any free trade. Just stepping outdoors is risking your life. In other places, farmers are not allowed to grow the foods they want to and sell them at whatever price they want. People are not allowed to traffic in food trade, and are not allowed to build up processing plants to process foods. It is either terrorism, civil war, or bad policy that causes this, but the end result is all the same.
If you would really like to help the Kosovoans, send in some footsoldiers to weed out and eliminate the terrorists. Allow the people a chance to have a free election, encouraging things like civil discourse and not killing the opponent. Stabilize the security of the country first.
Next, you must enact policies that will allow the free market to thrive.
As you can see, whether or not the Coca-Cola company advertises a campaign for a contest has little bearing on the economy in Kosovo. Your comment was not only stupid, it was actually counterproductive.
Knee-jerk reaction:
Yuck! Eating pee is bad! I wouldn't do it! Why does the government do this to their poor soldiers? I bet there is some real corruption here somewhere.
Logical:
If you are a soldier, and you are in a situation that warrants using pee to hydrate the food, I imagine that the situation is pretty dire. I'd say they are much more likely to die from lead poisoning than their own urea in this situation.
If you prefer to listen to logic, you really have to dig deep to find the kernel of truth.
A good way to do this is to apply the following criteria:
(1) Filter on dirty language. People who use dirty language can't express themselves anyway so trying to understand what they say is mostly hopeless. Usually, their thought process doesn't go beyond "eat - drink - sleep" anyway, so they have nothing to say.
(2) Filter on namecalling or conspiracy theories without evidence. These people are still stuck in the 2nd grade, and have nothing interesting to say, although their conspiracy theories are quite funny at times.
After you apply those two criteria, you should get a pretty good reading here at Slashdot, or any mailing list or public forum.
The bottom line is nobody wants it. Right now, data storage is so abundant that having twice or four times the amount of data per disk won't solve any problems. We've hit the stage in my line of work that long-term data storage is a non-issue. Suck as much data as you want and store it anywhere, we're never going to run out.
Excuse? Bipartisan effort to dsimantle the Soviet Union? The Democrats were shouting that we were losing the war, that we shouldn't try to upset them, and that we should just settle for containment. They've been arguing this ever since WWII.
Patton was right. We should've gone in an kicked the crap out of the USSR while we had them down. MacArthur was removed from commanding the Korean conflict because he had a plan to not just conquer the North Koreans, but the Chinese and USSR as well.
When Reagan said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" how many democrats cheered him on? How many denounced him as a lunatic that was going to get us all killed?
When Reagan built up the military to unprecedented heights, forcing the USSR to try and match step and thus bankrupt their economy, where we the democrats telling him, "Right on! Sure, we have a deficit, but we can win this war if we keep it up?"
Bi-partisan effort? Reagan dragged the democrats and liberal republicans every step of the way. They pleaded with him "Stop! You're going to get us all killed!" They certainly didn't help in the victory. Don't make me laugh.
Ronald Reagan took huge, calculated risks, and he was right. That's what a leader does, and that's why he is credited with the victory over USSR.
Don't try to rewrite history.
1.4 millions new jobs in the last 9 months.
The Fed is worrying about inflation because our economy is growing so fast.
Not since the 80's under Reagan have we seen such fast-paced growth (the 90's were a bump compared to this recovery).
Unemployment at historic lows, so low that many economists say it is an unreliable measure.
John Ashcroft hasn't eroded any freedoms. When's the last time you got investigated by him? The Partriot Act extends the same powers we had to investigate mafia and drug activities but now to terrorist activities as well. Or are you against that? I'll tell you one thing, John Ashcroft didn't vote for the Patriot Act, but John Kerry did.
For that matter, George W. Bush didn't declare war, but John Kerry did. George W. Bush doesn't have the power to declare war, only congress does.
If this nation is going down the crapper, than I condone the crapper! It sure is a lot better than when we had the dot-bomb era - remember that? We are more secure, we have more prosperity, and we have a freer society that we did before. Just open your eyes and look around and stop listening to the democrat propaganda.
Assumptions that turned out to be false?
Go ahead and keep telling yourself that. There is an ace up Bush's sleeve that is going to blow you away. The assumptions were neither false nor unjustified.
Halliburton and Dick Cheney have absolutely no connection because once Dick Cheney was announced as VP candidate, he severed all ties, and sold all the stock at a loss. If Dick Cheney and Halliburton were really collaborating, why is Halliburton losing so much money?
1,000 lives of valiant soldiers who gave their lives defending the freedom of not only our counrty, but a country which we considered our top enemy. I am a Christian: "Greater love hath no man than he lay down his life for his brother." I am shaking, overcome with emotion at the incredible sacrifice these heroes have made. I can barely hold the tears back thinking about them.
What Iraqi civilian casualties? I have heard of a few, but nothing like the wild reports I have seen some liberal bloggers and Saddam sympathizers report. I have heard from a man who escaped Saddam who lives in Seattle. His cousin or aunt or somebody close to him was killed by a soldier. But he said that he frankly forgives the soldier. He even was willing to be a civilian casualty if it meant the freedom of his country! He broke into tears, "Allah Akbar! America Akbar! You are saving my country, and what have we done for you? How can we ever repay you?"
What about the spontaneous celebration that happened when the handover completed and Paul Bremer left Iraq? Did you hear of that? There were terrorists who literally laid down their weapons and started shouting "USA! USA!" Did you hear about that? People were singing praises to Bush and the USA and the fact that he actually did what was promised! Did you hear about that?
I do not condone the torture of prisoners of war! Have you noticed that while Saddam's torturers were rewarded, our torturers are looking at stiff prison penalties? We punish our lawbreakers!
The republican message - the victory in Iraq - the good new - is not on the front pages. It isn't on CNN. It is heard in quiet. Bush's wisdom has conquered the weapons of Saddam and broken his power structure. Now even the Iraqis who fought us in Fallujah hail us as heroes. On sinner did destroy much good. Bill Clinton, his coverups, his scandals, and his outright criminal behavior was one of the reasons quoted by Osama Bin Laden for trying to destroy America! Go read his declarations of war, it is in plain sight, usually item number two or three right after usury or interest that we condone.
I'll tell you what inspires me about Bush.
He is a real leader. He makes tough decisions, and sometimes he has to take the unpopular choice because he believes it is the right one. I would rather have someone who follows his conscience than someone who tries to follow the winds of public opinion.
He has vision - a real plan to change America's future. His ambition of reforming the Middle East into a democratic one is so ambitious, such a huge gamble, and he took it and look at the results in just 2 short years. I would've nuked the entire subcontinent and started over, but he had the vision and the insight to turn it around.
His stance with North Korea is precisely correct. I am a Korean speaker, and I avidly follow Korean politics. He has a plan to withdraw the troops from South Korea but still defeat North Korea militarily. His plan is one of the only plans that will actually work, in my mind. I could write a book on the issues and the decisions and which ones I feel are the best but it would bore you to tears.
His core beliefs are in line with mine. You may feel that fundamental Christians are the devil. I do not. I have a personal relationship with my God, and he does too, if you look at his personal life. We are not ruled by religion, but it was the tool that woke us up.
If I were running McDonalds, and I had the chance to hire George W. Bush, I would do it in a heartbeat. He is a real leader. He inspires rather than degrades. He points the direction to go, and he is able to do things organizationally that you won't understand.
I believe that politics and religion are the same subject. How do we handle our enemies? Do we forgive them or do we blow them to smithereens? What do we do about crime? What kind of values should our leaders have? How do we solve the breakup of the family? Is it even a problem? These are all religious topics.
While the government cannot make laws favoring one institute of religion over another, we can vote in leaders of whatever religion we like.
I believe that a race between atheists and Christians is justified. That is the big question we face today. Are we a nation ruled by God, or are we ruled by Men? If by God, then we are all held accountable before Him. Our rights come from Him and not the governmnet. If by Men, then none of our rights are granted by God, but by Men, and can just as easily be revoked. If we decide to subject ourselves to God, freedom, intelligence, prosperity are the inevitable result. If we choose to subject ourselves to men, then we have only despair, captivity, and poverty to look forward to.
I believe George W. Bush has played all of you Bush-haters for a fool. He comes off as an idiot, but he is probably the greatest political genius since Ronald Reagan. You know, the Ronald Reagan that defeated the greatest enemy we ever knew? you know, the Ronald Reagan that started the decline of the democrat power structure and the rise of the conservative republican faction?
In every case where George W Bush has put blood in the water to attract the attack dogs, he has turned around to crush them. He sits there fishing for idiots to refute him, because he knows he is right all the time.
Right now, he has turned the democrat party from a party of intellectual socialists into a party of ranting lunatic extremist. For those of you who are deep into the party, look around at what has happened to your image. It has degraded so deeply that political scientists are talking about an era of republican-led government.
George W. Bush is going to go down as one of the top five presidents in our history. One hundred years in the future, the top five presidents will be:
1. George Washington
2. Abraham Lincoln
3. Ronald Reagn
4. George W. Bush
5. Franklin D. Roosevelt
Unfortunately, the machine knocking down McCain is funded by the democrat party. Those calls made in South Carolina were not funded by George W. Bush. There were funded by prominent democrats in the area.
As far as McCain's politics, he hardly has any support from the republicans in his home state, and he is far too liberal and wishy-washy for my tastes. Most of the people I see active in the republican party feel the same way. That's why he doesn't get support.
Before you go mod this post down, let me summarize what I saw from outside the democrat party.
Howard Dean was the only candidate that had real support from the people. I saw it around me - people were genuinely excited about the guy. Even though I thought he was looney, misguided, etc... his supporters didn't think so and could argue about him and why they liked him. It made for some really interesting and competitive debates that I enjoyed tremendously.
I heard this fervent support on radio shows when real callers would call up. These were real callers - they weren't paid-for goons. They had a sincere desire to see Howard Dean get nominated and elected. I remember hearing more than one conservative talk show host say that the only real candidate was Howard Dean - the rest were robots or politicos who have worked their way up the ladder and now it was finally their turn. Only Howard Dean was the people's candidate.
But watch what happened to him right before the primaries started. Literally out of the blue, the most favored (by the party leadership) rose in the polls. Where were John Kerry's supporters? No one could find them. I remember Rush Limbaugh, who allowed plenty of air time each week to go to the Howard Dean supporters to debate the issues, trying to get a single sincere John Kerry supporter. At first no one called in. Then the robots with scripts called in. And then a few "I like him because he's our last hope." called in. But no real supporters!
My conclusion is that the candidate that won the primary was the candidate appointed by the leadership, not the one who was popular. Even now, we can't find true John Kerry supporters - those who support them because they are excited about him and his ideas. We instead have two classes of supporters: Paid goons who read scripts and talk like the candidate, and those who support him because he is the only hope for the Democrat party, not because he is good or anything.
As a strong, passionate christian and conservative, I was looking forward to a campaign between Bush and Dean. President Bush really inspires me, and I want him to win because I really think he is doing an awesome job. I would have loved to debate people who feel the same way. Instead, all we have to debate are a bunch of people who don't even like their candidate! There's no fun this election.
Go ahead and mod me down now, but that's the way I feel and that's what I observed even though I despise the Democrat Party.
Now for the conspiracy theories. Two years ago, in the New Jersey race for the senate, the democrat candidate got replace by someone who didn't even run in the primaries. If I were a democrat, I would be fuming. "HEY! THAT'S NOT THE GUY WE NOMINATED! WHAT THE *** ARE YOU DOING?" But that's not the way the democrat party works. It's a top-down structure. "You little people better fall in line or you're not getting anything from the soup kitchen." "We're only doing this in your best interests. Remember, you're too stupid to make these kinds of decisions so we make them for you."
And two years before, the senate candidate running against John Ashcroft, probably the most conservative candidate to run for office since the 1800's, mysteriously dies in a plane crash. Interestingly enough, several of Clinton's associates have died in plan crashes since he was elected.
One of the most notables was Ron Brown, who, during the autopsy, an X-Ray was taken by one of the physicians and used as an example for a classic gunshot to the head. He'd point out the bullet fragments and the patterns. Except the archived X-Rays went missing. He happened to get the X-Ray because he was teaching a class that week or something and he decided to use Ron Brown's X-Ray because it was the clearest example he'd ever seen.
But my point is, if you want to find corruption, look to the top of your party. Sandy Berger's recent behavior is only a small example of that.
No, the Republicans think that government shouldn't be involved in business at all. They're watching out for the little guy because maybe the little guy will want to start a software company one day too. The last thing we need is a heavily regulated software industry.
Or do you want us to end up like the drug industry, where we have to run our products through a gauntlet of underpaid, incompetent bureacrats? Would that be "fair"? Would that be looking out for the little guy?
And before you go sniping about how we can't beat Microsoft without government getting involved, take a look around. The empire is falling, and the government is not the cause of it.
I've always thought these anti-trust and monopoly gigs were just show to make people like you think the government is hard at work trying to make life "fair" and "level the playing field" when all they are trying to do is sucker you into reelecting them one more time. At least Bush has the balls to come out and shut down these kinds of cases.
Gee, I'm an American too, and I took the time to learn Korean so that when I go to Korea, we can communicate.
In fact, most of the American ex-patriots that I see speak enough Korean to get around.
I'm kinda wondering where these arrogant Americans who refuse to "do as the Romans do" really are, you know? You yourself have busted the prototype - so why perpetuate it?
And if you're going to complain about Americans who go to foreign countries but won't learn the language, why don't you complain about the foreigners who come here and won't learn English? Xenophobia works both ways.
In fact, I daresay that Americans are far more tolerant of those from different cultures than those cultures are of us! The Koreans are incredibly tolerant, but they don't go nearly as far as Americans do! (How many Americans have applied for and received Korean citizenship that weren't of Korean descent? And the inverse?)
The urban myth you cite has no numbers and no references.
I found this out:
Krakatoa spat out about 10 cubic kilometers of debris - that's 10,000,000,000 cubic meters.
In 1989, the amount of debris produced by coal-firing power plants was about 1,000,000 cubic meters.
I'd say there's a couple orders of magnitude difference there, buddy. I believe coal-firing power plants produce far more pollution than our automobiles, natural gas power plants, and nuclear power plants.
It seems like everyone is agreed: That the government shouldn't ban violent video games.
I'm here to voice an opinion against the "standard" opinion.
Parents are responsible for their kids. I don't doubt that. However, the government has taken a large part of that responsibility away from the parents. I am not allowed as a parent to do things to control my kid that were simply non-controversial 30 years ago. For instance, spanking.
I see my neighbors being dragged away by bureacrats because of unsubstantiated allegations. Somehow the opinion of a 7 year old now has more legal weight than the testimony of a grown man.
It sounds like I am arguing for less government control. Yes, I believe that is the way to go. Get the government out of our homes.
But in today's environment, the government isn't going to let up any time soon. So we ban violent video games.
Why? Because if we don't ban them, they may become a "right". And soon, I may be dragged away by bureacrats if I don't allow my children to play them.
So as long as the government is busy being a parent, we have to make sure it is doing its role properly.
If you don't want government to ban video games, then you'd better support getting government out of our homes. No more social services. No more community outreach programs. Free up the education system and return control to the community. And stop collecting taxes to pay for some crack addict living in government housing.
So you have two choices: Big government or limited government. If you support big government, I support video game bans. If you support limited government, then government can't ban video games. Can't have it both ways.
I used to work a minimum wage job back in 1994. Now I have a very hefty salary, much more than 2000%.
And a CEO won't have to lay off 100 workers to dave $2 million dollars if the tax rate is cut. He'll instead take his windfall of $X million and reinvest it in his company, which means more workers and better jobs.
Earth, a planet that some say has maintained a rich biological diversity for hundreds of millions of years, has built in mechanisms to stabilize environmental conditions!
In a shocking new report, it was discovered that perhaps this global warming thing is a bunch of nonsense. The amount of damage we do to the atmosphere is nothing compared to what the variety of stellar material, volcanic eruptions, and biological processes have done in the past several million years. After each disturbance, the earth has maintained balance by compensating for disastrous change in the chemical composition of the atmosphere. Some of these adaptive processes were geological, but some were also biological.
It's almost as if life on earth was designed or grew to accustom themselves to earth's natural environment. In fact, the biological organisms have even changed the environment to make it more habitable for other biological organisms.
Just like bacteria in the environment maintain a balance by consuming extra resources, or limiting growth due to the absence of resources, the earth as a whole behaves in a similar way. When there is too much of something, it gets consumed at a greater rate. When there is not enough, it gets consumed at a slower rate. In the end, everything has a balance that is maintained within precise criteria.
In other news, free markets really work, and are the most effective way for distributing resources fairly due to a similar process called "supply" and "demand". Also, it was discovered that profits weren't evil, and that by allowing corporations to own land and profit therefrom, the land is taken better care of and more efficient than wilderness.