Not a lot that some nice covert actions couldn't have achieved at a fraction the cost, no great upheaval, and allowing the US to keep the good will it had a couple of years back.
If we couldn't kill Castro (and believe me we tried) what makes you think we would've been able to kill Saddam?
I was going to reply to that other guy, but your post made that unnecessary. The only point I would add is that Saddam would be unlikely to sell his bio and chem weapons to just anybody, given that a radically islamic terrorist group would be as likely to use the weapons against him--remember he's a fairly secular leader--as against the US.
Yes, I've read it. Multiple times. The general who brokered the arms deal with the street gangs was killed by Batman. It's intimated that Batman forced him to commit suicide. Still, it has been a few years . . . if you think my interpretation of that event is off, I'd appreciate a reply.
More like "8000 dead from gas attack in San Francisco". Saddam and his army aren't a threat. His weapons are.
Saddam's missles can barely reach Israel, much less the US. Also, Iraq has never directly attacked the US. Not only is preemption without provocation a morally dubious idea, but you've also failed to explain why Iraq is more of a threat than Iran, North Korea, Pakistan or even China. They all have dangerous weapons. They're all ruled severely by a select few who don't quite have all their marbles.
And no, "because they broke UN resolutions" is not a valid reason. Israel has broken more UN resolutions than almost anyone else, but only an idiot would suggest that we invade them.
Many in the pro-war camp are simply fear-mongering. We Americans suffered a great psychic blow on the 11th, and that's being taken advantage of to pursue a personal agenda.
But, I ask that you keep quiet DURING the war. You've preemptively protested against the war, but now that it's underway stand behind the troops and your country.
You can ask, but the rest of us aren't going to keep quiet. People keeping quiet, scared they'd be deemed unpatriotic, is what got us into this nonsense in the first place. And what's all this about "standing behind your country"? Should the Northern Alliance have done that? If so, they'd still be under the Taliban. It's been said that sometimes dissent is the most patriotic course of action. So it is in this case.
No, you don't always stand behind your country--not when you believe with all your heart that your country is doing the wrong thing. I'll even go one step further: those of us who believe the war to be unjust have a moral obligation to speak out against it. Was Kronkite being unpatriotic when he offered his editorial claiming that the war in Vietnam was a mistake? Was his take on the war a slam against the troops? Of course not.
We're a democracy, and many men--every bit as brave and courageous as our boys and girls in Iraq--have died so that we, the minority, would be able to have our say.
Have you ever read an actual Batman comic book? Batman is one seriously screwed in the head guy. When DC made a role playing game, the #1 rule was heroes don't kill, or even allow a bad guy to die through in action. The ONLY exception was Batman.
I've never played the RPG, but I remember ole' Bats stating quite clearly in the comics that he would never kill anyone, that would be crossing the line. Why do you think he's never offed the Joker? The exception to this rule would be Frank Miller's possible future Batman. That guy, he really doesn't give a damn.
I'm pretty familiar with the text, but I don't recall seeing that passage. Can you substantiate your claim for me?
The guy you were talking to misquoted (I think). I believe what he meant to say was that if a man sleeps with an umarried woman and then refuses to marry her he must pay her dowry price (ie, the price her father would get from marrying her off).
If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he must still pay the bride-price for virgins. Exodus 22:15-17 (KJV)
Speaking of irony, how's about making fun of stuttering while performing the written equivalent?:)
But seriously, I'm a stutterer and I've had to work long and hard to become an effective communicator. I'll admit, there are stupid stutterers, but there are also some brilliant ones. Newton stutterered. Jefferson stuttered.
You probably know at least one stutterer that's in the closet; a lot of us, through practice, have assumed fairly good control of our speech and only have the occasional disfluency. Still, when someone takes a random poke at stuttering, implying that the act in itself makes you incompetent, it stings.
This isn't a flame, and I know you didn't mean to insult anyone, but I hope you keep what I've said in mind.
I'll have to second you on the reveal bulbs. After putting them in my bedroom, the rest of the apartment looked horrible in comparison; I ended up replacing every bulb in my place with reveals. I just hope they last as long as the standard incandescents, as I only bought the reveals two weeks ago.
Some of the passages in this book are beautiful . ..
Agreed. Certain passages were so--I sound like an idiot critic for using this word--sublime that I actually had to stop what I was doing to write them down.
People are likely to make fun of you, because this is/. and admitting anything close to a weakness (esp. an intellectual weakness) will bring the trolls out in force. I'm sure these same people have never even read the book.
I read it shortly after it came out, mostly on the strength of an interview with Chabon that I happened across on the radio. The author struck me as an amazingly brilliant, but more importantly, interesting man. I remember he mentioned Superman, and how he was created by Jewish Americans (like the protagonists in his book). It was interesting hearing his take on Superman as being akin to a Jewish immigrant; he even has the name 'Clark Kent' as a way of fitting in, to have as WASPy a name as he could. No alien-sounding "Kal-El", no sir.
Anyway, polished off K&C within about a week, but it was certainly not an easy read. I kept my collegiate dictionary handy, and I used it quite often.
I've noticed that young, intelligent men (women seem not to do this so much) often write "to impress". The writing is too self-conscious, too "look at me, ain't I brilliant?" Somebody else mentioned David Foster Wallace, and while a lot of English geeks will no doubt hate me (and think me an idiot) for saying this, I think his writing suffers from this attitude. It's a fine line to walk, I'll admit. Chabon doesn't fall into this trap, I don't think, but at times he seemed perilously close.
I recommend the book highly. I think a lot of folks here would get a lot out if it, as its extremely rich and can be enjoyed on many different levels. There was a very insightful post earlier dissecting the work, so I'll just let that one stand, as I'm sure I wouldn't be able to do a better job.
Look, I dislike Bush as much as the next guy (actually, probably more than the next guy), but I'm afraid your assertion that he only increased NASA's funding after the Columbia disaster is not correct.
President Bush released his proposed 2004 budget Monday. Prepared before the Columbia tragedy, Bush calls for increasing the NASA budget by roughly $500 million to $15.47 billion, about a 3 percent increase. Funding for the space shuttle program itself would rise from $3.2 billion to $3.9 billion under Bush's proposal. source
yea and liberals who loved clinton going into kosovo because he was freeing people from a dictator now think the US has no right to police the world..
OK, please correct me if I'm mistaken, because I was fairly young when the Kosovo thing occurred, but it seems to me that atrocities were being commited at the very time we entered Kosovo. Our motives were fairly pure in that we as a country weren't "getting" anything out of liberating the people there--we were honestly just trying to help.
As I understand it, Sadamm has committed endless atrocities, but the very worst ones were committed in the past. Why are we only going in now? So that we can get cheap oil? Because Bush holds a grudge against this guy ("he tried to kill my dad")? Because we can't find Osama and so need an easy scapegoat to bring down in his stead?
If I honestly believed that the only (or even primary) reason we were going to Iraq was to make life better for the Iraqi people, then I think I wouldn't be as hard on Bush as I have been.
And look at Afghanistan. All these months after our liberation there and have we really done that much good? Warlords are still running amock; the only place they don't have any real power is Kabul. Are we really interested in helping the oppressed of the world or are we just so blindingly scared of terrorism that we're willing to lash out at the first country the President looks at funny?
I see a small problem with this idea: Not everyone has an Internet connection, especially poorer folks.
Problem is, these poorer folks still spend money on entertainment. My kid sister held a job at a movie theater about a year back and she always had to deal with people who were angry that the movie theatre didn't advertise showtimes in the paper everyday. She'd tell them to just check the website for showtimes and she got a lot of (often angry) responses that some people don't have money to spend on "the Internet".
There's still a digital divide, people, no matter how much we'd like to think otherwise. Until everyone who listens to music is online, then ceasing the production of CDs makes no business sense.
The Economy is bad because that's what the newspapers want. A month before Bush took office as President, news channels were telling of how aweful the world is getting, and economic plunges ahead.
That's ridiculous. What you're essentially saying is that the media companies hyped up an economic downturn--ie, they wanted the economy to fail. Their own stock plummeted as much as anybody else's (think AOL-TW) and they lost massive amounts of money. Why on earth would they have wanted to do that?
Answer: Maybe they predicted an economic downturn because all of the economic indicators pointed in that direction--there was something of a stockmarket bubble, you know.
Yet you still kept to yourself, didn't you? Even though you plainly saw "If I do A, B will kick my ass" you continued to do A...
When the worst of it started, around the second grade, I was seven years old for chrissakes. You start conditioning someone early enough and see what happens.
My only conclusion is that nerds are idiots, and have no concept of self-preservation.
My only conclusion is that you're a fucktard, with no concept of compassion for your fellow man.
Why the hostility to people who act like you yourself used to? Look, if you still hate the person you used to be, then that's your problem. No reason to take it out on others by calling them juvenile names.
I should probably post this anon, but I can totally relate to those teenagers. I was picked on all the way from K through 12 for a variety of reasons: being brown in an all-white town, having a stutter, keeping to myself, the list goes on.
I love the people who say that kids who get bullied "ask" for it; it's the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard. Let me tell you this, the more you try to keep to yourself and try to avoid trouble, the more it seeks you out. Maybe saying all those kids you taunted over the years deserved it functions as a salve for your conscience, but it doesn't change the fact that all they probably wanted was for everyone to just leave them alone.
Slashdot Mirror
At least they don't block /.
Not a lot that some nice covert actions couldn't have achieved at a fraction the cost, no great upheaval, and allowing the US to keep the good will it had a couple of years back.
If we couldn't kill Castro (and believe me we tried) what makes you think we would've been able to kill Saddam?
I was going to reply to that other guy, but your post made that unnecessary. The only point I would add is that Saddam would be unlikely to sell his bio and chem weapons to just anybody, given that a radically islamic terrorist group would be as likely to use the weapons against him--remember he's a fairly secular leader--as against the US.
Yes, I've read it. Multiple times. The general who brokered the arms deal with the street gangs was killed by Batman. It's intimated that Batman forced him to commit suicide. Still, it has been a few years . . . if you think my interpretation of that event is off, I'd appreciate a reply.
More like "8000 dead from gas attack in San Francisco". Saddam and his army aren't a threat. His weapons are.
Saddam's missles can barely reach Israel, much less the US. Also, Iraq has never directly attacked the US. Not only is preemption without provocation a morally dubious idea, but you've also failed to explain why Iraq is more of a threat than Iran, North Korea, Pakistan or even China. They all have dangerous weapons. They're all ruled severely by a select few who don't quite have all their marbles.
And no, "because they broke UN resolutions" is not a valid reason. Israel has broken more UN resolutions than almost anyone else, but only an idiot would suggest that we invade them.
Many in the pro-war camp are simply fear-mongering. We Americans suffered a great psychic blow on the 11th, and that's being taken advantage of to pursue a personal agenda.
But, I ask that you keep quiet DURING the war. You've preemptively protested against the war, but now that it's underway stand behind the troops and your country.
You can ask, but the rest of us aren't going to keep quiet. People keeping quiet, scared they'd be deemed unpatriotic, is what got us into this nonsense in the first place. And what's all this about "standing behind your country"? Should the Northern Alliance have done that? If so, they'd still be under the Taliban. It's been said that sometimes dissent is the most patriotic course of action. So it is in this case.
No, you don't always stand behind your country--not when you believe with all your heart that your country is doing the wrong thing. I'll even go one step further: those of us who believe the war to be unjust have a moral obligation to speak out against it. Was Kronkite being unpatriotic when he offered his editorial claiming that the war in Vietnam was a mistake? Was his take on the war a slam against the troops? Of course not.
We're a democracy, and many men--every bit as brave and courageous as our boys and girls in Iraq--have died so that we, the minority, would be able to have our say.
God help us all.
"Say it with me now: 'socialism'!"
Have you ever read an actual Batman comic book? Batman is one seriously screwed in the head guy. When DC made a role playing game, the #1 rule was heroes don't kill, or even allow a bad guy to die through in action. The ONLY exception was Batman.
I've never played the RPG, but I remember ole' Bats stating quite clearly in the comics that he would never kill anyone, that would be crossing the line. Why do you think he's never offed the Joker? The exception to this rule would be Frank Miller's possible future Batman. That guy, he really doesn't give a damn.
I'm pretty familiar with the text, but I don't recall seeing that passage. Can you substantiate your claim for me?
The guy you were talking to misquoted (I think). I believe what he meant to say was that if a man sleeps with an umarried woman and then refuses to marry her he must pay her dowry price (ie, the price her father would get from marrying her off).
If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he must still pay the bride-price for virgins.
Exodus 22:15-17 (KJV)
can't convey an idea without without stuttering
:)
Speaking of irony, how's about making fun of stuttering while performing the written equivalent?
But seriously, I'm a stutterer and I've had to work long and hard to become an effective communicator. I'll admit, there are stupid stutterers, but there are also some brilliant ones. Newton stutterered. Jefferson stuttered.
You probably know at least one stutterer that's in the closet; a lot of us, through practice, have assumed fairly good control of our speech and only have the occasional disfluency. Still, when someone takes a random poke at stuttering, implying that the act in itself makes you incompetent, it stings.
This isn't a flame, and I know you didn't mean to insult anyone, but I hope you keep what I've said in mind.
I'll have to second you on the reveal bulbs. After putting them in my bedroom, the rest of the apartment looked horrible in comparison; I ended up replacing every bulb in my place with reveals. I just hope they last as long as the standard incandescents, as I only bought the reveals two weeks ago.
Some of the passages in this book are beautiful . . .
Agreed. Certain passages were so--I sound like an idiot critic for using this word--sublime that I actually had to stop what I was doing to write them down.
People are likely to make fun of you, because this is /. and admitting anything close to a weakness (esp. an intellectual weakness) will bring the trolls out in force. I'm sure these same people have never even read the book.
I read it shortly after it came out, mostly on the strength of an interview with Chabon that I happened across on the radio. The author struck me as an amazingly brilliant, but more importantly, interesting man. I remember he mentioned Superman, and how he was created by Jewish Americans (like the protagonists in his book). It was interesting hearing his take on Superman as being akin to a Jewish immigrant; he even has the name 'Clark Kent' as a way of fitting in, to have as WASPy a name as he could. No alien-sounding "Kal-El", no sir. Anyway, polished off K&C within about a week, but it was certainly not an easy read. I kept my collegiate dictionary handy, and I used it quite often.
I've noticed that young, intelligent men (women seem not to do this so much) often write "to impress". The writing is too self-conscious, too "look at me, ain't I brilliant?" Somebody else mentioned David Foster Wallace, and while a lot of English geeks will no doubt hate me (and think me an idiot) for saying this, I think his writing suffers from this attitude. It's a fine line to walk, I'll admit. Chabon doesn't fall into this trap, I don't think, but at times he seemed perilously close.
I recommend the book highly. I think a lot of folks here would get a lot out if it, as its extremely rich and can be enjoyed on many different levels. There was a very insightful post earlier dissecting the work, so I'll just let that one stand, as I'm sure I wouldn't be able to do a better job.
Look, I dislike Bush as much as the next guy (actually, probably more than the next guy), but I'm afraid your assertion that he only increased NASA's funding after the Columbia disaster is not correct.
President Bush released his proposed 2004 budget Monday. Prepared before the Columbia tragedy, Bush calls for increasing the NASA budget by roughly $500 million to $15.47 billion, about a 3 percent increase. Funding for the space shuttle program itself would rise from $3.2 billion to $3.9 billion under Bush's proposal.
source
Wow, this means my chances for getting laid . . . remain completely unchanged!
yea and liberals who loved clinton going into kosovo because he was freeing people from a dictator now think the US has no right to police the world..
OK, please correct me if I'm mistaken, because I was fairly young when the Kosovo thing occurred, but it seems to me that atrocities were being commited at the very time we entered Kosovo. Our motives were fairly pure in that we as a country weren't "getting" anything out of liberating the people there--we were honestly just trying to help.
As I understand it, Sadamm has committed endless atrocities, but the very worst ones were committed in the past. Why are we only going in now? So that we can get cheap oil? Because Bush holds a grudge against this guy ("he tried to kill my dad")? Because we can't find Osama and so need an easy scapegoat to bring down in his stead?
If I honestly believed that the only (or even primary) reason we were going to Iraq was to make life better for the Iraqi people, then I think I wouldn't be as hard on Bush as I have been.
And look at Afghanistan. All these months after our liberation there and have we really done that much good? Warlords are still running amock; the only place they don't have any real power is Kabul. Are we really interested in helping the oppressed of the world or are we just so blindingly scared of terrorism that we're willing to lash out at the first country the President looks at funny?
Kinda reminds me of Party of Five.
I used to love that show, but it was really hard to watch. I'd think, "Jesus, cut these kids some slack already."
I see a small problem with this idea: Not everyone has an Internet connection, especially poorer folks.
Problem is, these poorer folks still spend money on entertainment. My kid sister held a job at a movie theater about a year back and she always had to deal with people who were angry that the movie theatre didn't advertise showtimes in the paper everyday. She'd tell them to just check the website for showtimes and she got a lot of (often angry) responses that some people don't have money to spend on "the Internet".
There's still a digital divide, people, no matter how much we'd like to think otherwise. Until everyone who listens to music is online, then ceasing the production of CDs makes no business sense.
The Economy is bad because that's what the newspapers want. A month before Bush took office as President, news channels were telling of how aweful the world is getting, and economic plunges ahead.
That's ridiculous. What you're essentially saying is that the media companies hyped up an economic downturn--ie, they wanted the economy to fail. Their own stock plummeted as much as anybody else's (think AOL-TW) and they lost massive amounts of money. Why on earth would they have wanted to do that?
Answer: Maybe they predicted an economic downturn because all of the economic indicators pointed in that direction--there was something of a stockmarket bubble, you know.
Still, some listening tests have shown that most people prefer ogg.
You couldn't have answered that any better. I hope the other guy's seething in hatred as I type this :)
Yet you still kept to yourself, didn't you? Even though you plainly saw "If I do A, B will kick my ass" you continued to do A...
When the worst of it started, around the second grade, I was seven years old for chrissakes. You start conditioning someone early enough and see what happens.
My only conclusion is that nerds are idiots, and have no concept of self-preservation.
My only conclusion is that you're a fucktard, with no concept of compassion for your fellow man.
You're an idiot.
Why the hostility to people who act like you yourself used to? Look, if you still hate the person you used to be, then that's your problem. No reason to take it out on others by calling them juvenile names.
I should probably post this anon, but I can totally relate to those teenagers. I was picked on all the way from K through 12 for a variety of reasons: being brown in an all-white town, having a stutter, keeping to myself, the list goes on.
I love the people who say that kids who get bullied "ask" for it; it's the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard. Let me tell you this, the more you try to keep to yourself and try to avoid trouble, the more it seeks you out. Maybe saying all those kids you taunted over the years deserved it functions as a salve for your conscience, but it doesn't change the fact that all they probably wanted was for everyone to just leave them alone.
Well, not anything useful anyway.