It is coherent, if we use non-military influence to deal with people. I'm supporting Clintonesqe economic neo-imperialism there, with a concern for liberties as opposed to a concern for money. I'm not advocating the use of military power. (or for that matter deadvocating the use of military power with the parenthetical (not me). at this point I'm fighting flow without extending) OTOH, it isn't coherent with my argumentation, that's why I never advocated this policy, it was parenthetical.
I don't get the connection between protection of our allies and protection of ourselves and our citizens. Sure, it's probably important to protect out allies, that's what allies are sometimes supposed to do, but do we really gain anything from protecting Israel, in terms of the defense of the US of A? Not really.
In regards to the production of terrorists (I am claiming a causal relationship between the enviroment a group of people are in and their response. Individuals do indeed all choose, but statistically, more will choose, or less, depending on circumstances. So production is valid), it is not weakness that causes terrorism, if you look at history, it is the opposite. Nazi Germany was strong, and yet they suffered from attrition from terrorists inside their nation (good guy terrorists, but terrorists). Britian, ruling the world, was spending lots of money on tropps to put down revolts and terroristic attacks on its colonial machine, until it fell apart/was dismantled. In the 80s, despite the arms race, and hegemony race of the Cold War that left the US sitting high above the third world, the threat of terrorism rose up (incidentally, it coincided with the decrease in the (perceived) threat from the Soviets), and occasionally from terrorists we weren't even funding! Non-US endorsed terrorism spread in the 90s, despite the rising American military power and the ascension to uncontested first place in the world heirarchy of power. Timothy McVeigh did not go to Oklahoma City with a Ryder truck because the US was getting weak. The assertion that it is weakness that leads to terrorism is simply a ruse to support the expansion of the very power which terrorists respond to in the first place.
Although, I do agree that the support of terrorists -- like giving money in aid to the Taliban, training of Contras and the Iran weapons for hostages program, I apologize for the lack of Clinton-era examples, he was more covert about it, and everyone was too busy caring about who he screwed to see who we were funding and who we were bombing -- is bad. And, yes, the 'fire a few missiles into an asprin plant and forget' thing did suck. In fact, once terrorists are a threat, simply ignoring them is a bad option, but responding to that threat by becoming larger, by becoming more-sp the bullies of the world, by provoking more terrorists, is lunacy. You don't need to beat someone up to have peace with them.
If we really did pursue a policy of self defense, why would we go after Indonesian rebels? I mean, besides the fact it's been our policy since the Carter administration.
So what I hear is that the saftey and well being of Americans IS what is right. The problem is that Iraq, even if it has weapons, is not a threat to US, self-defense wise. Sure, they pose a threat to some of our allies, but it's not like those allies are nessecary for our self-defense, we don't need Israel to defend our border with Canada. Since we apparently don't care about genocide and chemical and biological warfare if it stays away from the US, we don't need to give a rat's ass. If Israel blows up Iraq in response, good for us...
On the other hand, pissing off parts of the world that are ripe to produce wanna-be terrorists, that's just not intelligent if we want to reduce the threat of terrorism. So what's up with this Self Defense BS? Maybe there is another agenda underneath, such as a post-neo-imperialist reign of American military power, now that it turns out owning everyone and their mother doesn't make people our obediant shoe-producing zombies well enough.
My "proposal", (which I wouldn't call mine, because I think we need to use our Hege to deal with the way Russia treats the Chechs, Turkey treats the Kurds, China treats everyone, North Korea treats everyone, Pakistan treats everyone, etc, but not with weapons of war) as you call it, is to consider that perhaps we should comprimise with others, and try to stop threats on a pre-military level. Does this mean that we do everything anyone wants us to? No. Does this mean that we give them money because they threaten us with rocks? No. It does mean that we consider the possibility that blowing people up isn't the way to make us popular. It does mean that we comprimise on things. It does mean that we consider the possibility that our actions might have negative consequences in the longer term, or even the short term, and that just because we don't like someone's shirt color, doesn't mean we can bust their face in.
What exactly is the difference between a policy that "will keep totalitarian dictators and terrorist crazies from attacking us" and a policy that won't, say, make a bunch of first world countries impose trade bans on us? What is the difference between appeasement there and diplomatic comprimise anywhere else?
For example, why do we still work with Russia when they use chemical weapons on their own people, and perpetuate religious and geoethnic genocide? Why don't we attack China for their human rights record? Because we fear some type of retribution, economic or military. The difference between appeasing China, or appeasing Europe, or appeasing Canada and appeasing Iraq is simply that we don't fear Iraq.
To honestly reject appeasement in the case of Iraq on the basis of What is Right, and not China (and to frame the Iraq debate in What is Right vs Practicality will do the same for China, thus requiring us to say China is Right), is to endorse a doctrine of Might Makes Right that makes Right the policy of appeasement pursued by Chamberlain, because Nazi Germany was powerful. ADDITIONALLY, it justifies the Holocaust, because, hey, the Jews were weak.
Note that the articles you link provide some interesting speculation, but no evidence. Most notably, they ignore the obvious fact that both the French and the Russians have a vital interest in keeping the oil deals they have made with Mr. Hussein, and would not have voted for the recent UN resolution if it would have the result you claim.
They would not have voted for the resolution, if that were the case, if A) they seriously thought doing otherwise would prevent war, B) they seriously thought the resolution would insure a war and C) they were able to do this in a vacuum, outside of American arm twisting. None of these conditions were met by the UN resolution.
As for Israel, you keep claiming massacres (though I see you've backed down from your earlier claims of numbers or percentages), but you provide no cites. Why should we take you seriously? You also claim `expulsions', but who are you claiming has been expelled? There are plenty of Palestinian citizens of Israel, and they have all the rights of any other Israeli (indeed there were 17 Palestinian members of Israel's parliament, the Knesset, the last time I checked).
Plenty of Israeli Arabs have rights, not Palestinian citizens. Discrimination against Israeli Arabs, and the economic inequality due to the way military service works in Israel, aside, Palestinians are a disenfranchised occupied land. Of course, Israel, and especially Israeli Jewish supremecists, who are fearful of a non-Jew-dominated Israel, doesn't WANT to give citizenship rights and voting power to Palestinians.
or from the current Palestinian Authority, which makes it a crime punishable by death to be Jewish in the West Bank.
Priceless. That was priceless. A bigger load of lying hyperbole I haven't seen since I last checked this thread. But hey, everyone must love the demand for evidence on one side of the mouth, and the "Palestinian Authority kills small israeli babies for fun" style outragous lies out the other.
Gol' darn it, we can't appease people! If we appeased our enemies by being nice to them, we might not have to fight, and we all love fighting! After all, it's not like talking ever did anything. And isn't that all that appeasement is? Talking and diplomacy, comprimising, instead of duking it out like real men with issues about the size of their dicks?
Won't work if the "arbitrary shapes" meet at one point
If they meet a point, they don't share a border, and the map maker's problem is now one of aesthetics rather than fitting the geometrical boundries of the Map-Maker's-Problem. So don't worry your pretty little head about it.
Wouldn't signals "leak" from one floor to the one above and below? Which would make it indeed 3D, wouldn't it?
That's why I said it's a modified 2D problem. It is a stack of 2D color problems, along with dealing with an adjacent 2D color problem. The "leakage" is always from one plane to an adjacent plane, each tiled, with no interaction across a plane. It is not truly 3D, as each plane simply interacts with one other plane, as far as a minimum answer goes, and while there is no limit to the answers for a 3D problem, there is for a modified 2D problem like this is. The maximum number of colors needed for such a modified 2D map is 8, with an alternating set of 4 colors every level.
The general map coloring problem is pretty useless in a 3D world, there is no minimum # of colors, for example. Buildings, however, are not 3D, they're layers of 2D, so it would be solving a modified 2D map coloring problem.
Essentially, according to Burton's analysis, you can safely use four channels in North America, and five channels in Europe
Before anyone thinks that Europe is better because they have more useable channels, don't forget that our 802.11b channels have much larger asses than theirs.
Maybe I'm not up on my comics. I don't remember the Fantastic Four's origins story, but explain what they had to do with secret Canadian projects with X in their name (such as Weapon X, which gave us the likes of Wolverine and Sabertooth).
You did misunderstand. First off, I'm saying Israel and Iraq are the biggest impediments to regional stability.
Secondly, it's not about Jews, it's about Israelis. This framing of Israeli issues as Jewish issues is an fraudulent appeal to solidarity when delivered towards Jews, and a dishonest play on non-Jewish western guilt over the holocaust when not. Only a little over half of all Israelis are Jews (less than 60% I know, but I can't give you a stat). The US is more Christian than Israel is Jewish, and you don't see criticism of the US portrayed as criticism of christians by any but the looney religious right like Buchanan, Falwell and Robertson. Why is that? For one thing, because the Holocaust focused on Jews -- and Gypsies, (the racist verbs "to jew" and "to gyp" both connotate similar swindling of the other party in economic transactions, interesting coincidence) communists and homosexuals, but no one cares about them.
I am not off the mark, I beleive, when I say that Israel is a source of tension and perpetuates war in the middle east, but that does not mean that getting rid of it is a better alternative. Then again, I also say we shouldn't just get rid of Iraq, so what do I know?
North Korea is not likely to use the bomb on South Korea, Iraq and Israel could very well nuke each other, if the upcoming Israeli government follows Sharon's lead, and a US attack on Iraq induces them to fire on Israel.
I didn't say there wasn't a difference, I said it would be kind of embarrasing to be that hypocritical, especially because Israel refused weapons inspectors, and we support them. I realize we're hypocritical to start, but it's more so. International perception is key, in this little consparicy theory.
The US did work in South Vietnam, but no one should think that it was the Big Bad Imperialists fighting the Good Wholesome Peoples of Vietnam.
Actually, they should think that, just getting rid of the "good" and "wholesome" bits, which are unimportant value judgements on the Vietnamese. We went in and opressed and fought the South Vietnamese so we could fight the North Vietnamese. Vietnam was a situation created by the US Imperialism. That we "intended to protect the freedom of the South Vietnamese" is A) not really true, and B) not important. We coerced the South Vietnamese, which not only works against their freedom we claim to protect, but is an unjustified, destabilizing influence that far exceeds North Korea. Eventually we wised up and just picked client states, as in the Iraq-Iran war, and gave the chemical weapons to Iraq to play with.
The US did not "gas" South Vietnam. CNN tried to pull that and they had to admit it was BS. The only time since 1917-18 that the United States used chemical weapons in combat was when a US transport in Italy was sunk and the gas escaped from the burning/sinking ship, and those chemicals affected Allied soldiers and sailors.
Only if you accept the modified definition of chemical weapons put forth by the United States when we signed on to the Geneva Convention (50 years late, of course), a definition excluding defoliants and riot-control agents, the two types of chemical weapons which we used in Vietnam. Does the term "Agent Orange" ring a bell?
Israel did not take over Palestine...[the Arabian states] decided to take it all over and "push the Jews into the sea." They lost.
Then in '67 Jordan, Syria and Egypt had everything set up for a suprise attack, but Israel jumped them first. That is why the West Bank, Sinai and Golan were lost.
What exactly does this matter? Israel demonstrated no problem with fighting when threatened, and they have no problem holding the Golan Heights, despite the fact it's useless. Israel is no Switzerland, especially given Sharon's warnings of big retaliatory action if Iraq were to try to SCUD them. You know they'd do it, they're that crazy.
That in mind, I want to know what preemptive strike against Israel was prevented by the bombing of Lebanon for several decades. There is no legitimate reason, in a defense model, for Israel to send its bombs into Lebanon, and blow shit up.
I was actually pleasantly suprised by the scope of the destruction in Korea after the cold war ended (mainly picked because its convient, and does represent some change in US policy. Curiously, all your examples are from the cold war, not good for trying to reduce the distant aspect of the North Korean Threat you hype up. Maybe that's because the highest bodycount in a single incident was of NKs, or not, I'm not privy to your logic in deciding examples), I thought a live border would have a lot more casualties. And when you consider the fact that North Korea has become generally more and more conciliatory throughout the 90s and this decade, (up to the announcment of nuclear weapons, which we don't quite know what to make of), North Korea's nukes are certianly not a threat to regional stability, much less a threat to the US.
I feel compelled to note that's not completely accurate. The Palestine I'm talking about, the occupied palestine -- and I can see how you may have considered all of palestine, original Israel and all, sorry about that -- once belonged to local non-Israeli states (Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon(?) I think), and it was taken from them in the course of war. It does not matter whose land it really is. These questions that shape a lot of discourse on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict are not important besides in setting up the situation where we do our psycho-political profile of a nation, these morality assigning claims are not the issue.
Most of my argument vis a vis Israel has been on the basis of what is politically reasonable, and I'm not going to suggest that Iraq is the most stable place in the world. But remember, Israel is not afraid to tear it up, if we look to history, we see Israel is quite fine with fighting, they took over Palestine, part of Egypt, the Golan Heights (they still occupy the Golan Heights and Palestine)... And they aren't afraid to be hawkish now either. Sharon had threated to react in big ways if Iraq tried to SCUD them again, Israel has recently done major military operations in occupied Palestine, and they're generally a little loose. BTW, using chemical weapons doesn't work as a morality determinant in this case, because we claim to be the good guys.
North Korea has activly tried to take-over South Korea and destabalize Japan.
See, you're digging back 50 years, why, a mere 30 years ago, we were gassing and destabilizing South Veitnam, and here we are, passing judgement on North Korea for something relativly forgotten and distant.
You're seriously going to tell me that North Korean / Iraqi Nukes = Israeli nukes? Do you really think that there's a good chance Israel would use its nukes against us?
No, of course not, we're their bitch, and a really big powerful one at that. They wouldn't attack us. That doesn't mean they wouldn't have developed nukes in exactly the way we don't like other people to be developing nukes, especially since they probably stole some of that technology from the US. It certainly points out how inconsistent and hypocritical we are. We don't want to give the rest of the world anything else to throw in our faces, do we?
I have to ask you though: Do you seriously think that NKorea will use its nukes against us? Not even Ari Flischer says that, and his job is to emphasize the dangers of Iraqi nukes and the Axis of Evil (Including NK). North Korea is pretty stable, compared to Iraq or Israel.
Hell, do you think there's a good chance Iraq will use its nukes against us? They can't even get close to us. Sure, they could attack Israel, and Israel could nuke/gas them back (depends on what the new government decides). But Iraq is not going to nuke us. Even the CIA has said that the only real chance of Iraq using its weapons of mass destruction is if we force them. Certainly, they don't pose a nuclear threat.
So who is the biggest diplomatic embarrasment? Israel. Who is the biggest threat to peace? Iraq or Israel. Who do we not want to be seen as pampering as we start a war with Iraq? Israel. It's better to keep the data out of sight, away from embarrassment, than to say "we were young and foolish then. Oh, and we lied about not knowing if Israel has the Bomb, we just did that because we love Israel better than all you dirty muslims."
Contrary to earlier reports, NIMA is releasing virtually all of its imagery from these programs except for imagery of Israel.
Now, I could be all suspicious, and beleive that this not showing Israel is in part so that we don't betray the fact we always knew about the Israeli nuke program, even back in its nascent stages, and look more like chumps who let Israel push us around and do the very things we claim not to tolerate from Hussein, and are pissed at North Korea about; but to do so would be paranoid and probably get pegged by the IAO as an Israel/America hating terrorist, and if there's one thing that crimps my discourse, it's thinking that I might be thought of as anti-american. (Stupid America, we suck.)
Actually, this is a really good point, not about pokemon or digimon, kids don't nessecarily like that any more, but about the fact that all the stuff kids love will dissapear. All the stuff I see 13 yr old kids do on the net is IM friends, play stupid flash games and play Neopets (part Pokemon, part Evercrack and all html), of which only the bad flash games are okay, and they'd still be moderated. It'd be way easier just to get rid of the cable when the kid is on, and acheive the same result.
Doesn't making the kids disclose information in the browser violate the Children Online Privacy Protection Act? Or does the.kids.us domain get exempt? Besides, why do they need people to identify? Are they afraid terrorists are going to use.kids.us to communicate (oh, that would be funny, wouldn't it?)? I can't conceive how they could hope to keep pedophiles away with that.
On the other hand, I'm sure a pedophile could run a site, and get lots of leads.
Slashdot without knee jerk reactions? What's next, good spelling and proper grammar? Why don't you just get rid of CowboyNeal, cyber-libertarians and Linux-supporters?
If these people just could figure out a way of making a profit by selling the dog turds, they would sponsor laws prohibiting the dogs from shitting on the streets where everyone can have an access to the turds. Screw that street-shitting shit, they'd get the government to eminent domain everyone's dogs for them.
Maybe it was the fact that no reasonable argument was made for why the publishers wanted these databases shut down, maybe it was the fact that the publishers have no shame, maybe it is just the general vileness of their kind, but somehow, I feel like something needs smashing.
How exactly does one look at this and not feel like these publishing corporations are the scum of the earth, who need to be wiped out by divine justice carried out by their hands?
Seriously, I'm not kidding, give me a coping mechanism, some justification, anything.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't get the connection between protection of our allies and protection of ourselves and our citizens. Sure, it's probably important to protect out allies, that's what allies are sometimes supposed to do, but do we really gain anything from protecting Israel, in terms of the defense of the US of A? Not really.
In regards to the production of terrorists (I am claiming a causal relationship between the enviroment a group of people are in and their response. Individuals do indeed all choose, but statistically, more will choose, or less, depending on circumstances. So production is valid), it is not weakness that causes terrorism, if you look at history, it is the opposite. Nazi Germany was strong, and yet they suffered from attrition from terrorists inside their nation (good guy terrorists, but terrorists). Britian, ruling the world, was spending lots of money on tropps to put down revolts and terroristic attacks on its colonial machine, until it fell apart/was dismantled. In the 80s, despite the arms race, and hegemony race of the Cold War that left the US sitting high above the third world, the threat of terrorism rose up (incidentally, it coincided with the decrease in the (perceived) threat from the Soviets), and occasionally from terrorists we weren't even funding! Non-US endorsed terrorism spread in the 90s, despite the rising American military power and the ascension to uncontested first place in the world heirarchy of power. Timothy McVeigh did not go to Oklahoma City with a Ryder truck because the US was getting weak. The assertion that it is weakness that leads to terrorism is simply a ruse to support the expansion of the very power which terrorists respond to in the first place.
Although, I do agree that the support of terrorists -- like giving money in aid to the Taliban, training of Contras and the Iran weapons for hostages program, I apologize for the lack of Clinton-era examples, he was more covert about it, and everyone was too busy caring about who he screwed to see who we were funding and who we were bombing -- is bad. And, yes, the 'fire a few missiles into an asprin plant and forget' thing did suck. In fact, once terrorists are a threat, simply ignoring them is a bad option, but responding to that threat by becoming larger, by becoming more-sp the bullies of the world, by provoking more terrorists, is lunacy. You don't need to beat someone up to have peace with them.
So what I hear is that the saftey and well being of Americans IS what is right. The problem is that Iraq, even if it has weapons, is not a threat to US, self-defense wise. Sure, they pose a threat to some of our allies, but it's not like those allies are nessecary for our self-defense, we don't need Israel to defend our border with Canada. Since we apparently don't care about genocide and chemical and biological warfare if it stays away from the US, we don't need to give a rat's ass. If Israel blows up Iraq in response, good for us...
On the other hand, pissing off parts of the world that are ripe to produce wanna-be terrorists, that's just not intelligent if we want to reduce the threat of terrorism. So what's up with this Self Defense BS? Maybe there is another agenda underneath, such as a post-neo-imperialist reign of American military power, now that it turns out owning everyone and their mother doesn't make people our obediant shoe-producing zombies well enough.
My "proposal", (which I wouldn't call mine, because I think we need to use our Hege to deal with the way Russia treats the Chechs, Turkey treats the Kurds, China treats everyone, North Korea treats everyone, Pakistan treats everyone, etc, but not with weapons of war) as you call it, is to consider that perhaps we should comprimise with others, and try to stop threats on a pre-military level. Does this mean that we do everything anyone wants us to? No. Does this mean that we give them money because they threaten us with rocks? No. It does mean that we consider the possibility that blowing people up isn't the way to make us popular. It does mean that we comprimise on things. It does mean that we consider the possibility that our actions might have negative consequences in the longer term, or even the short term, and that just because we don't like someone's shirt color, doesn't mean we can bust their face in.
For example, why do we still work with Russia when they use chemical weapons on their own people, and perpetuate religious and geoethnic genocide? Why don't we attack China for their human rights record? Because we fear some type of retribution, economic or military. The difference between appeasing China, or appeasing Europe, or appeasing Canada and appeasing Iraq is simply that we don't fear Iraq.
To honestly reject appeasement in the case of Iraq on the basis of What is Right, and not China (and to frame the Iraq debate in What is Right vs Practicality will do the same for China, thus requiring us to say China is Right), is to endorse a doctrine of Might Makes Right that makes Right the policy of appeasement pursued by Chamberlain, because Nazi Germany was powerful. ADDITIONALLY, it justifies the Holocaust, because, hey, the Jews were weak.
They would not have voted for the resolution, if that were the case, if A) they seriously thought doing otherwise would prevent war, B) they seriously thought the resolution would insure a war and C) they were able to do this in a vacuum, outside of American arm twisting. None of these conditions were met by the UN resolution.
As for Israel, you keep claiming massacres (though I see you've backed down from your earlier claims of numbers or percentages), but you provide no cites. Why should we take you seriously? You also claim `expulsions', but who are you claiming has been expelled? There are plenty of Palestinian citizens of Israel, and they have all the rights of any other Israeli (indeed there were 17 Palestinian members of Israel's parliament, the Knesset, the last time I checked).
Plenty of Israeli Arabs have rights, not Palestinian citizens. Discrimination against Israeli Arabs, and the economic inequality due to the way military service works in Israel, aside, Palestinians are a disenfranchised occupied land. Of course, Israel, and especially Israeli Jewish supremecists, who are fearful of a non-Jew-dominated Israel, doesn't WANT to give citizenship rights and voting power to Palestinians.
or from the current Palestinian Authority, which makes it a crime punishable by death to be Jewish in the West Bank.
Priceless. That was priceless. A bigger load of lying hyperbole I haven't seen since I last checked this thread. But hey, everyone must love the demand for evidence on one side of the mouth, and the "Palestinian Authority kills small israeli babies for fun" style outragous lies out the other.
Gol' darn it, we can't appease people! If we appeased our enemies by being nice to them, we might not have to fight, and we all love fighting! After all, it's not like talking ever did anything. And isn't that all that appeasement is? Talking and diplomacy, comprimising, instead of duking it out like real men with issues about the size of their dicks?
If they meet a point, they don't share a border, and the map maker's problem is now one of aesthetics rather than fitting the geometrical boundries of the Map-Maker's-Problem. So don't worry your pretty little head about it.
That's why I said it's a modified 2D problem. It is a stack of 2D color problems, along with dealing with an adjacent 2D color problem. The "leakage" is always from one plane to an adjacent plane, each tiled, with no interaction across a plane. It is not truly 3D, as each plane simply interacts with one other plane, as far as a minimum answer goes, and while there is no limit to the answers for a 3D problem, there is for a modified 2D problem like this is. The maximum number of colors needed for such a modified 2D map is 8, with an alternating set of 4 colors every level.
The general map coloring problem is pretty useless in a 3D world, there is no minimum # of colors, for example. Buildings, however, are not 3D, they're layers of 2D, so it would be solving a modified 2D map coloring problem.
Before anyone thinks that Europe is better because they have more useable channels, don't forget that our 802.11b channels have much larger asses than theirs.
Boy am I dumb. I bow before your (gparent's) superior comic wisdom.
/me is puzzled
Maybe I'm not up on my comics. I don't remember the Fantastic Four's origins story, but explain what they had to do with secret Canadian projects with X in their name (such as Weapon X, which gave us the likes of Wolverine and Sabertooth).
Secondly, it's not about Jews, it's about Israelis. This framing of Israeli issues as Jewish issues is an fraudulent appeal to solidarity when delivered towards Jews, and a dishonest play on non-Jewish western guilt over the holocaust when not. Only a little over half of all Israelis are Jews (less than 60% I know, but I can't give you a stat). The US is more Christian than Israel is Jewish, and you don't see criticism of the US portrayed as criticism of christians by any but the looney religious right like Buchanan, Falwell and Robertson. Why is that? For one thing, because the Holocaust focused on Jews -- and Gypsies, (the racist verbs "to jew" and "to gyp" both connotate similar swindling of the other party in economic transactions, interesting coincidence) communists and homosexuals, but no one cares about them.
I am not off the mark, I beleive, when I say that Israel is a source of tension and perpetuates war in the middle east, but that does not mean that getting rid of it is a better alternative. Then again, I also say we shouldn't just get rid of Iraq, so what do I know?
North Korea is not likely to use the bomb on South Korea, Iraq and Israel could very well nuke each other, if the upcoming Israeli government follows Sharon's lead, and a US attack on Iraq induces them to fire on Israel.
I didn't say there wasn't a difference, I said it would be kind of embarrasing to be that hypocritical, especially because Israel refused weapons inspectors, and we support them. I realize we're hypocritical to start, but it's more so. International perception is key, in this little consparicy theory.
Actually, they should think that, just getting rid of the "good" and "wholesome" bits, which are unimportant value judgements on the Vietnamese. We went in and opressed and fought the South Vietnamese so we could fight the North Vietnamese. Vietnam was a situation created by the US Imperialism. That we "intended to protect the freedom of the South Vietnamese" is A) not really true, and B) not important. We coerced the South Vietnamese, which not only works against their freedom we claim to protect, but is an unjustified, destabilizing influence that far exceeds North Korea. Eventually we wised up and just picked client states, as in the Iraq-Iran war, and gave the chemical weapons to Iraq to play with.
The US did not "gas" South Vietnam. CNN tried to pull that and they had to admit it was BS.
The only time since 1917-18 that the United States used chemical weapons in combat was when a US transport in Italy was sunk and the gas escaped from the burning/sinking ship, and those chemicals affected Allied soldiers and sailors.
Only if you accept the modified definition of chemical weapons put forth by the United States when we signed on to the Geneva Convention (50 years late, of course), a definition excluding defoliants and riot-control agents, the two types of chemical weapons which we used in Vietnam. Does the term "Agent Orange" ring a bell?
Israel did not take over Palestine...[the Arabian states] decided to take it all over and "push the Jews into the sea." They lost.
Then in '67 Jordan, Syria and Egypt had everything set up for a suprise attack, but Israel jumped them first. That is why the West Bank, Sinai and Golan were lost.
What exactly does this matter? Israel demonstrated no problem with fighting when threatened, and they have no problem holding the Golan Heights, despite the fact it's useless. Israel is no Switzerland, especially given Sharon's warnings of big retaliatory action if Iraq were to try to SCUD them. You know they'd do it, they're that crazy.
That in mind, I want to know what preemptive strike against Israel was prevented by the bombing of Lebanon for several decades. There is no legitimate reason, in a defense model, for Israel to send its bombs into Lebanon, and blow shit up.
I was actually pleasantly suprised by the scope of the destruction in Korea after the cold war ended (mainly picked because its convient, and does represent some change in US policy. Curiously, all your examples are from the cold war, not good for trying to reduce the distant aspect of the North Korean Threat you hype up. Maybe that's because the highest bodycount in a single incident was of NKs, or not, I'm not privy to your logic in deciding examples), I thought a live border would have a lot more casualties. And when you consider the fact that North Korea has become generally more and more conciliatory throughout the 90s and this decade, (up to the announcment of nuclear weapons, which we don't quite know what to make of), North Korea's nukes are certianly not a threat to regional stability, much less a threat to the US.
I feel compelled to note that's not completely accurate. The Palestine I'm talking about, the occupied palestine -- and I can see how you may have considered all of palestine, original Israel and all, sorry about that -- once belonged to local non-Israeli states (Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon(?) I think), and it was taken from them in the course of war. It does not matter whose land it really is. These questions that shape a lot of discourse on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict are not important besides in setting up the situation where we do our psycho-political profile of a nation, these morality assigning claims are not the issue.
Most of my argument vis a vis Israel has been on the basis of what is politically reasonable, and I'm not going to suggest that Iraq is the most stable place in the world. But remember, Israel is not afraid to tear it up, if we look to history, we see Israel is quite fine with fighting, they took over Palestine, part of Egypt, the Golan Heights (they still occupy the Golan Heights and Palestine)... And they aren't afraid to be hawkish now either. Sharon had threated to react in big ways if Iraq tried to SCUD them again, Israel has recently done major military operations in occupied Palestine, and they're generally a little loose. BTW, using chemical weapons doesn't work as a morality determinant in this case, because we claim to be the good guys.
North Korea has activly tried to take-over South Korea and destabalize Japan.See, you're digging back 50 years, why, a mere 30 years ago, we were gassing and destabilizing South Veitnam, and here we are, passing judgement on North Korea for something relativly forgotten and distant.
No, of course not, we're their bitch, and a really big powerful one at that. They wouldn't attack us. That doesn't mean they wouldn't have developed nukes in exactly the way we don't like other people to be developing nukes, especially since they probably stole some of that technology from the US. It certainly points out how inconsistent and hypocritical we are. We don't want to give the rest of the world anything else to throw in our faces, do we?
I have to ask you though: Do you seriously think that NKorea will use its nukes against us? Not even Ari Flischer says that, and his job is to emphasize the dangers of Iraqi nukes and the Axis of Evil (Including NK). North Korea is pretty stable, compared to Iraq or Israel.
Hell, do you think there's a good chance Iraq will use its nukes against us? They can't even get close to us. Sure, they could attack Israel, and Israel could nuke/gas them back (depends on what the new government decides). But Iraq is not going to nuke us. Even the CIA has said that the only real chance of Iraq using its weapons of mass destruction is if we force them. Certainly, they don't pose a nuclear threat.
So who is the biggest diplomatic embarrasment? Israel. Who is the biggest threat to peace? Iraq or Israel. Who do we not want to be seen as pampering as we start a war with Iraq? Israel. It's better to keep the data out of sight, away from embarrassment, than to say "we were young and foolish then. Oh, and we lied about not knowing if Israel has the Bomb, we just did that because we love Israel better than all you dirty muslims."
Contrary to earlier reports, NIMA is releasing virtually all of its imagery from these programs except for imagery of Israel.
Now, I could be all suspicious, and beleive that this not showing Israel is in part so that we don't betray the fact we always knew about the Israeli nuke program, even back in its nascent stages, and look more like chumps who let Israel push us around and do the very things we claim not to tolerate from Hussein, and are pissed at North Korea about; but to do so would be paranoid and probably get pegged by the IAO as an Israel/America hating terrorist, and if there's one thing that crimps my discourse, it's thinking that I might be thought of as anti-american. (Stupid America, we suck.)
The Cuban roll is still embargoed, I'm afraid.
Actually, this is a really good point, not about pokemon or digimon, kids don't nessecarily like that any more, but about the fact that all the stuff kids love will dissapear. All the stuff I see 13 yr old kids do on the net is IM friends, play stupid flash games and play Neopets (part Pokemon, part Evercrack and all html), of which only the bad flash games are okay, and they'd still be moderated. It'd be way easier just to get rid of the cable when the kid is on, and acheive the same result.
Doesn't making the kids disclose information in the browser violate the Children Online Privacy Protection Act? Or does the .kids.us domain get exempt? Besides, why do they need people to identify? Are they afraid terrorists are going to use .kids.us to communicate (oh, that would be funny, wouldn't it?)? I can't conceive how they could hope to keep pedophiles away with that.
On the other hand, I'm sure a pedophile could run a site, and get lots of leads.
That's a great idea, having other kids.tlds. That way, we can have a goatse.kids.cx
Slashdot without knee jerk reactions? What's next, good spelling and proper grammar? Why don't you just get rid of CowboyNeal, cyber-libertarians and Linux-supporters?
If these people just could figure out a way of making a profit by selling the dog turds, they would sponsor laws prohibiting the dogs from shitting on the streets where everyone can have an access to the turds.
Screw that street-shitting shit, they'd get the government to eminent domain everyone's dogs for them.
Maybe it was the fact that no reasonable argument was made for why the publishers wanted these databases shut down, maybe it was the fact that the publishers have no shame, maybe it is just the general vileness of their kind, but somehow, I feel like something needs smashing.
How exactly does one look at this and not feel like these publishing corporations are the scum of the earth, who need to be wiped out by divine justice carried out by their hands?
Seriously, I'm not kidding, give me a coping mechanism, some justification, anything.