It's still a valid question, RustyTaco, and one that we should hope our leaders have the answer to. If other countries were bigger threats than Iraq, why were they not put first on the agenda? Giving a lesser threat a higher priority is endangering the security of the country. Of course, if you can successfuly argue that Iraq was the biggest threat the US faced, then the discussion gets well and truly interesting.
Low earners pay plenty of taxes. FICA and the like take up a substantial percentage of most working folks' paychecks. The scam is that social security fund is then raided by politicians who dip into these revenues for general funds--it's an income tax in all but name for those who draw a paycheck from an employer and have that as their only income.
The working poor have it bad enough, they don't need be looked down as "lucky duckies" for not paying in their fair share of taxes. I'd much rather be where I am than in the position of not having to pay federal income tax.
Good point, the Soviet contribution is underrated in almost any discussion of WWII. If Germany had only had to fight a one front war in Europe, things might've turned out terribly differently.
The attempted Nazi invasion of Stalingrad cost them dearly. Hitler apparently never brushed up on Napoleon's mistakes.
Jesus, how OT am I? Umm, I did a clean reinstall of win2k on my Dad's old PIII-400 tower last week. Stuck firefox and thunderbird on it, and he couldn't believe how zippy it was. He's a bright guy, so when I told him about the security benefits of the alternatives he was all for it.
BTW, before the clean reinstall he was thinking of buying a brand-new computer b/c the PIII was "too slow". All he uses is the web, email, and the occasional ssh to a server from work. Most consumers are waaaay too quick to jump to newer hardware when they don't really need it.
Check out his user info; he's been working for/. since 2000 and is currently editor of the apple section.
I hated to degenerate into ad hominem on that last post, I swear I don't do that often, but the guy is FRUSTRATING! And I wasn't trolling--I do seriously think he's homophobic. Notice that he didn't address that issue at all, he just got pissed off (hit a little close to home, maybe?).
It's like he's not even listening. Of course, I just checked out your posting history and it looks like you know this all too well. And, hey, we both made his foes list: go us! Apparently, those capable of expressing rational, opposing viewpoints are considered dangerously subversive in pudge's mind.
Thanks for being a fan. I like your posts and have friended you back as well.
THIS is a troll? Because he called scamming a store out of an ipod stealing? Fucking mods. (that's right, flamebait me--I've got karma that's just sitting around going to waste!)
What you're saying with regards to Keyes and Santorum is that it's ok to insult a politician's kid if, through doing so, you're not trying to attack the politician's ideas.
You said:
I said no such thing. I didn't excuse it. I said it was different.
No, actually, you said "First, Santorum and Keyes were not trying to score points AGAINST Cheney. Yes, it matters." So you did say that if you're not attacking a political idea of the parent that it makes a big difference as to the level of acceptability. It shouldn't make any difference at all, so long as what was said was not hurtful, malicious, or untrue.
Also, you never refuted my Edwards argument--why was he allowed to mention Mary Cheney in his debate?
Any parent in that position would be pissed off, which is what makes it true.
Please, any parent ashamed of their child's homosexuality would be pissed off, you mean. You say it's easier to understand your point of view if you're a parent, well I say it's easier to understand my side if you're ok with homosexuality. You have any gay friends, pudge? I wouldn't be surprised if you found them morally repugnant.
This has everything to do w/ homosexuality, your claims to the contrary.
As to the latter, I said that only in the sense that "it is slimy because Dick and Lynne say so," which is true, because they are the parents, and they make the rules.
Fuck the parents. John Kerry made a statement which, as I mentioned previously, was not hurtful, malicious, or untrue. You've wandered so far into the "think of the children" school of thought that you've forgotten what (and who) this is about. It's true, and it wasn't hurtful, so wtf are the Cheneys mad about? Because a political point was made? That's really all you've got going for you. Just because they're her parents doesn't give them a free pass to say that Kerry engages in underhanded tactics. And, btw, it makes me sick that Dick will parade the fact that his daughter's gay whenever it suits HIS political convenience. This is not about Dick and Lynne Cheney, this is about Mary. They're her parents, but they don't own her. If my parents were up for a big spot at the local Hindu temple and they showed outrage that someone pointed out their son was in the tech field instead of being a doctor, they'd probably be pissed (thankfully, they're not into the religious politics thing). Would they be justified in their anger? NO! I'm proud of my degree in CS, and I'm proud of my job, and if my parents were outraged that a political opponent used this against them, I'd be pissed off at only one group of people: my parents.
Sorry, but parents aren't the only ones who get to "make rules", as you say--I'm perfectly capable of developing a sense of ethics on my own. Mary is a grown, openly gay woman, not a child, and I'm certain she wasn't wounded for having been acknowledged as a gay woman by the opposition. And why did Edwards get a pass when he mentioned Mary in the VP debate? Because he was kissing Dick Cheney's ass at the same time?
What you're saying with regards to Keyes and Santorum is that it's ok to insult a politician's kid if, through doing so, you're not trying to attack the politician's ideas. That's bullshit. I don't have kids (yes, I know, "I can't possibly understand") but if some self-righteous jackoff called my kid a selfish hedonist because he or she were gay, you can damn well bet I'd comment publically. That goes double for some jerk who equated homosexuality with incest.
Your arguments are logically flawed. "You can't possibly understand" and "it's slimy because I said so" don't cut it. It might work with people who blindly hate John Kerry, but nobody else is buying it. If John Kerry had made genuinely monstrous gaffes, then you'd be talking about those and the Mary story wouldn't be a story. But since this is all your partisan hack self has to glom onto, you'll take it.
There are plenty of REAL reasons to not want Kerry to be President. Pick one.
Are you saying that it looks bad as in the/. editors are biased or that it looks bad as in we have all these terrible allegations regarding the incumbent's mismanagement of the war and yet this is the worst stuff we can find on the challenger? Seriously, your comment could be interpreted either way, depending on the viewpoint/bias of the reader.
Look, both Bush and Kerry misspeak ALL THE TIME; it's simply the nature of American politics. As a citizen, it's your civic duty to seek out the misstatements of both candidates and determine which has been speaking the more dangerous/egregious misstatements (and, yes, in some cases, outright lies). This means more than just reading the National Review's bashing points of one candidate.
As for Kerry's goose-hunting, it's a shallow photo-op. He has time for it because he think it'll get him votes, whereas he's probably calculated that following the world series won't give him as much benefit. Don't tell me Bush has never engaged in a shallow photo-op when he should've been running the country.
Low and slimy? Please. If what Kerry said was so obviously bad, why did Bush say nothing about it in his rebuttal? Perhaps because it was manufactured outrage? (the worst kind, btw)
And Mary's parents, don't get me started--those two are scum who never stick up for their daughter. Name me one instance where they expressed outrage against people in their own party for insulting their daughter. Santorum, a sitting senator, equated homosexuality with incest, bigamy, adultery, and beastiality (ok, that last one I don't have an attribution for in this article, but I can dig one up if you contest the point). Where was all that self-righteousness in defense of their daughter then?
Or maybe that's not personal enough--Mary wasn't mentioned by name. What about when Alan Keyes, a prominent Republican running for Senate, said specifically that Mary was a selfish hedonist? Mary's parents sold her out, and are only willing to fight for her to make their political opponents look bad; it's disgusting. Nowhere did John Kerry insult her or her lifestyle. The only people who have a problem with what Kerry said are those who think homosexuality is something to be ashamed of (note: it's not).
Sorry, but saying you've made mistakes and then refusing to name even one is having it both ways, something which Bush has (rightly, in certain contexts) pointed out is a flaw of Kerry's.
I am certainly not apologizing for their actions. I don't need to agree with what they did to support their rights to do so.
In this, you and I are in agreement. My stance, however, is that in addition to supporting their rights, I will also shout from the rooftops that they are complete [insert expletives] for exercising those rights in a foolish manner:)
You pay $300 to get a front row, center seat to your favorite band. The person next to you pays the same amount. During the show the person next to you starts heckling the band and making a scene. Do you or do you not agree that the venue owner has the right to remove this person?
That's not even remotely the same thing. First of all, nowhere have I heard that the women in question were being obnoxious or making a scene. A more apt analogy would be that at a Blur concert you get kicked out for wearing an Oasis t-shirt.
Whether the organizer is, be it the Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, support group for people abducted by aliens, border collie owners, private citizen, they have rights to say who can stay at their private party.
Private party or not, this is bullshit. If a democratic gathering threw out people for simply wearing a t-shirt that said something like "protect our gun ownership rights" then I'd be equally as pissed about that. I don't care whether this is a private gathering; yes, they legally have the right to ask these women to leave, but that doesn't mean that apologists like you can make me and all believers in free speech shutup when we say that such tactics are thuggish, stupid, and petty. The fact that these people can't tolerate the idea that civil liberties might need protecting only further convinces me that the current Republican leadership is borderline fascist.
Hopefully you will not disagree that Saddam had a history (smoking guns... qty 2) of using WMD (i.e. chemical weapons) against the Kurds (#1) & Iranians (#2)... see quantity 2. Thus it might (just might) be logical to conclude that he might be doing some nuclear stuff...
You don't lead a country to preemptive war on that thin a premise, Sparky. Incidentally, Iran actually HAS a nuclear program. Why did we not invade them?
I have many points... everyone has a point or two... the real point you might be making (if I may be so bold as to put words on your monitor) is that "you disagree with my points"
Your points are non-sequitor nonsense. Give me something other than some document that less than 2% of the population read before we went to war and you might have something. Oh, but apparently I'm wrong: according to you, everybody and his brother read the thing. After all there's a LINK to the document on a website. Wow, I guess if someone posts a link to something on the WWW, then it's automatically widely read! Instant notoriety here I come . ..
And I watch enough C-SPAN, thank you, enough to see Senator Robert Byrd reduce the arguments for preemptive invasion to tatters.
And now you're calling me a script kiddie? Face it, old man, your arguments are tired and weak. Now you're just calling me names in the vain attempt that nobody will notice all the holes.
I'm sorry, but that document isn't how the war was sold to the American people and you know it. The war was sold on the grounds that the smoking gun for Iraq's WMD could "come in the form of a mushroom cloud". The war was sold to the populace on fear. Fear of WMD and fear of this non-existant alliance between bin Laden and Hussein.
If Bush had gone to the American people asking for a humanitarian mission, then you'd have a point, but he didn't and you don't. And no, the resolution doesn't count, Joe Citizen doesn't read those (and neither to most of our esteemed congressional representatives, I'd wager).
It was a humanitarian mission with a broad-based coalition behind it, not this Orwellian nightmare (with Americans bearing 90% of the casualties--how many Americans died in Clinton's war again?) we have going on now. The reasons for the Iraq war have been shifting constantly. If its true aim at the outset had been to help the Iraqi people and there'd been none of the fearmongering that went down, I might've even supported it.
Or to rephrase that question, since it was Japan who attacked on 12/7, why did Roosevelt invade Germany?
You realize we had a war with Japan in the Pacific and that we dropped two atomic bombs on them, right? So I guess, we should be nuking Saudi Arabia anytime now . ..
(see other reply to this post for details on Japan's open alliance with Germany)
Slashdot Mirror
It's still a valid question, RustyTaco, and one that we should hope our leaders have the answer to. If other countries were bigger threats than Iraq, why were they not put first on the agenda? Giving a lesser threat a higher priority is endangering the security of the country. Of course, if you can successfuly argue that Iraq was the biggest threat the US faced, then the discussion gets well and truly interesting.
Just so long as there's no kneeling. The only person that the President should kneel before is Zod. Superman, where are you?
Low earners pay plenty of taxes. FICA and the like take up a substantial percentage of most working folks' paychecks. The scam is that social security fund is then raided by politicians who dip into these revenues for general funds--it's an income tax in all but name for those who draw a paycheck from an employer and have that as their only income.
The working poor have it bad enough, they don't need be looked down as "lucky duckies" for not paying in their fair share of taxes. I'd much rather be where I am than in the position of not having to pay federal income tax.
Good point, the Soviet contribution is underrated in almost any discussion of WWII. If Germany had only had to fight a one front war in Europe, things might've turned out terribly differently.
The attempted Nazi invasion of Stalingrad cost them dearly. Hitler apparently never brushed up on Napoleon's mistakes.
Jesus, how OT am I? Umm, I did a clean reinstall of win2k on my Dad's old PIII-400 tower last week. Stuck firefox and thunderbird on it, and he couldn't believe how zippy it was. He's a bright guy, so when I told him about the security benefits of the alternatives he was all for it.
BTW, before the clean reinstall he was thinking of buying a brand-new computer b/c the PIII was "too slow". All he uses is the web, email, and the occasional ssh to a server from work. Most consumers are waaaay too quick to jump to newer hardware when they don't really need it.
Check out his user info; he's been working for /. since 2000 and is currently editor of the apple section.
I hated to degenerate into ad hominem on that last post, I swear I don't do that often, but the guy is FRUSTRATING! And I wasn't trolling--I do seriously think he's homophobic. Notice that he didn't address that issue at all, he just got pissed off (hit a little close to home, maybe?).
It's like he's not even listening. Of course, I just checked out your posting history and it looks like you know this all too well. And, hey, we both made his foes list: go us! Apparently, those capable of expressing rational, opposing viewpoints are considered dangerously subversive in pudge's mind.
Thanks for being a fan. I like your posts and have friended you back as well.
Hmm, outdebate an editor, get marked troll. SHOCKING!
Wow, that last post had as much quality logic as all your others combined. Thanks, homophobe! :)
THIS is a troll? Because he called scamming a store out of an ipod stealing? Fucking mods. (that's right, flamebait me--I've got karma that's just sitting around going to waste!)
I said:
;)
What you're saying with regards to Keyes and Santorum is that it's ok to insult a politician's kid if, through doing so, you're not trying to attack the politician's ideas.
You said:
I said no such thing. I didn't excuse it. I said it was different.
No, actually, you said "First, Santorum and Keyes were not trying to score points AGAINST Cheney. Yes, it matters." So you did say that if you're not attacking a political idea of the parent that it makes a big difference as to the level of acceptability. It shouldn't make any difference at all, so long as what was said was not hurtful, malicious, or untrue.
Also, you never refuted my Edwards argument--why was he allowed to mention Mary Cheney in his debate?
Any parent in that position would be pissed off, which is what makes it true.
Please, any parent ashamed of their child's homosexuality would be pissed off, you mean. You say it's easier to understand your point of view if you're a parent, well I say it's easier to understand my side if you're ok with homosexuality. You have any gay friends, pudge? I wouldn't be surprised if you found them morally repugnant.
This has everything to do w/ homosexuality, your claims to the contrary.
As to the latter, I said that only in the sense that "it is slimy because Dick and Lynne say so," which is true, because they are the parents, and they make the rules.
Fuck the parents. John Kerry made a statement which, as I mentioned previously, was not hurtful, malicious, or untrue. You've wandered so far into the "think of the children" school of thought that you've forgotten what (and who) this is about. It's true, and it wasn't hurtful, so wtf are the Cheneys mad about? Because a political point was made? That's really all you've got going for you. Just because they're her parents doesn't give them a free pass to say that Kerry engages in underhanded tactics. And, btw, it makes me sick that Dick will parade the fact that his daughter's gay whenever it suits HIS political convenience. This is not about Dick and Lynne Cheney, this is about Mary. They're her parents, but they don't own her. If my parents were up for a big spot at the local Hindu temple and they showed outrage that someone pointed out their son was in the tech field instead of being a doctor, they'd probably be pissed (thankfully, they're not into the religious politics thing). Would they be justified in their anger? NO! I'm proud of my degree in CS, and I'm proud of my job, and if my parents were outraged that a political opponent used this against them, I'd be pissed off at only one group of people: my parents.
Please think a little bit more next time.
You first
A great plan--you get modded up by both side's partisan hacks :)
Sorry, but parents aren't the only ones who get to "make rules", as you say--I'm perfectly capable of developing a sense of ethics on my own. Mary is a grown, openly gay woman, not a child, and I'm certain she wasn't wounded for having been acknowledged as a gay woman by the opposition. And why did Edwards get a pass when he mentioned Mary in the VP debate? Because he was kissing Dick Cheney's ass at the same time?
What you're saying with regards to Keyes and Santorum is that it's ok to insult a politician's kid if, through doing so, you're not trying to attack the politician's ideas. That's bullshit. I don't have kids (yes, I know, "I can't possibly understand") but if some self-righteous jackoff called my kid a selfish hedonist because he or she were gay, you can damn well bet I'd comment publically. That goes double for some jerk who equated homosexuality with incest.
Your arguments are logically flawed. "You can't possibly understand" and "it's slimy because I said so" don't cut it. It might work with people who blindly hate John Kerry, but nobody else is buying it. If John Kerry had made genuinely monstrous gaffes, then you'd be talking about those and the Mary story wouldn't be a story. But since this is all your partisan hack self has to glom onto, you'll take it.
There are plenty of REAL reasons to not want Kerry to be President. Pick one.
Are you saying that it looks bad as in the /. editors are biased or that it looks bad as in we have all these terrible allegations regarding the incumbent's mismanagement of the war and yet this is the worst stuff we can find on the challenger? Seriously, your comment could be interpreted either way, depending on the viewpoint/bias of the reader.
Look, both Bush and Kerry misspeak ALL THE TIME; it's simply the nature of American politics. As a citizen, it's your civic duty to seek out the misstatements of both candidates and determine which has been speaking the more dangerous/egregious misstatements (and, yes, in some cases, outright lies). This means more than just reading the National Review's bashing points of one candidate.
As for Kerry's goose-hunting, it's a shallow photo-op. He has time for it because he think it'll get him votes, whereas he's probably calculated that following the world series won't give him as much benefit. Don't tell me Bush has never engaged in a shallow photo-op when he should've been running the country.
Low and slimy? Please. If what Kerry said was so obviously bad, why did Bush say nothing about it in his rebuttal? Perhaps because it was manufactured outrage? (the worst kind, btw)
And Mary's parents, don't get me started--those two are scum who never stick up for their daughter. Name me one instance where they expressed outrage against people in their own party for insulting their daughter. Santorum, a sitting senator, equated homosexuality with incest, bigamy, adultery, and beastiality (ok, that last one I don't have an attribution for in this article, but I can dig one up if you contest the point). Where was all that self-righteousness in defense of their daughter then?
Or maybe that's not personal enough--Mary wasn't mentioned by name. What about when Alan Keyes, a prominent Republican running for Senate, said specifically that Mary was a selfish hedonist? Mary's parents sold her out, and are only willing to fight for her to make their political opponents look bad; it's disgusting. Nowhere did John Kerry insult her or her lifestyle. The only people who have a problem with what Kerry said are those who think homosexuality is something to be ashamed of (note: it's not).
Ya know, this article was marked with the "funny" stamp. Laugh :)
Sorry, but saying you've made mistakes and then refusing to name even one is having it both ways, something which Bush has (rightly, in certain contexts) pointed out is a flaw of Kerry's.
I am certainly not apologizing for their actions. I don't need to agree with what they did to support their rights to do so.
:)
In this, you and I are in agreement. My stance, however, is that in addition to supporting their rights, I will also shout from the rooftops that they are complete [insert expletives] for exercising those rights in a foolish manner
You pay $300 to get a front row, center seat to your favorite band. The person next to you pays the same amount. During the show the person next to you starts heckling the band and making a scene. Do you or do you not agree that the venue owner has the right to remove this person?
That's not even remotely the same thing. First of all, nowhere have I heard that the women in question were being obnoxious or making a scene. A more apt analogy would be that at a Blur concert you get kicked out for wearing an Oasis t-shirt.
Whether the organizer is, be it the Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, support group for people abducted by aliens, border collie owners, private citizen, they have rights to say who can stay at their private party.
Private party or not, this is bullshit. If a democratic gathering threw out people for simply wearing a t-shirt that said something like "protect our gun ownership rights" then I'd be equally as pissed about that. I don't care whether this is a private gathering; yes, they legally have the right to ask these women to leave, but that doesn't mean that apologists like you can make me and all believers in free speech shutup when we say that such tactics are thuggish, stupid, and petty. The fact that these people can't tolerate the idea that civil liberties might need protecting only further convinces me that the current Republican leadership is borderline fascist.
Hopefully you will not disagree that Saddam had a history (smoking guns ... qty 2) of using WMD (i.e. chemical weapons) against the Kurds (#1) & Iranians (#2) ... see quantity 2. Thus it might (just might) be logical to conclude that he might be doing some nuclear stuff ...
... everyone has a point or two ... the real point you might be making (if I may be so bold as to put words on your monitor) is that "you disagree with my points"
.
You don't lead a country to preemptive war on that thin a premise, Sparky. Incidentally, Iran actually HAS a nuclear program. Why did we not invade them?
I have many points
Your points are non-sequitor nonsense. Give me something other than some document that less than 2% of the population read before we went to war and you might have something. Oh, but apparently I'm wrong: according to you, everybody and his brother read the thing. After all there's a LINK to the document on a website. Wow, I guess if someone posts a link to something on the WWW, then it's automatically widely read! Instant notoriety here I come . .
And I watch enough C-SPAN, thank you, enough to see Senator Robert Byrd reduce the arguments for preemptive invasion to tatters.
And now you're calling me a script kiddie? Face it, old man, your arguments are tired and weak. Now you're just calling me names in the vain attempt that nobody will notice all the holes.
I'm sorry, but that document isn't how the war was sold to the American people and you know it. The war was sold on the grounds that the smoking gun for Iraq's WMD could "come in the form of a mushroom cloud". The war was sold to the populace on fear. Fear of WMD and fear of this non-existant alliance between bin Laden and Hussein.
If Bush had gone to the American people asking for a humanitarian mission, then you'd have a point, but he didn't and you don't. And no, the resolution doesn't count, Joe Citizen doesn't read those (and neither to most of our esteemed congressional representatives, I'd wager).
It was a humanitarian mission with a broad-based coalition behind it, not this Orwellian nightmare (with Americans bearing 90% of the casualties--how many Americans died in Clinton's war again?) we have going on now. The reasons for the Iraq war have been shifting constantly. If its true aim at the outset had been to help the Iraqi people and there'd been none of the fearmongering that went down, I might've even supported it.
Gore never said that.
Or to rephrase that question, since it was Japan who attacked on 12/7, why did Roosevelt invade Germany?
.
You realize we had a war with Japan in the Pacific and that we dropped two atomic bombs on them, right? So I guess, we should be nuking Saudi Arabia anytime now . .
(see other reply to this post for details on Japan's open alliance with Germany)
Brodie, is that you?
DAT = Digital Audio Tape