It's physically impossible for Kennedy to have been shot from inside the storm drain. First, the Zapruder film exactly locates the limousine wrt to the storm drain, and the limo is not even visible from inside it; second, the storm drain isn't large enough inside to accommodate a rifle aiming out without sticking it halfway into the street; third, a shot from inside would echo like hell, making it obvious that a shot came from there (adding a silencer would just make the rifle longer and more visible); fourth, any trajectory from a storm drain would have been blocked by the body of the limousine. See here for more info: http://www.jfklancer.com/drain1.html
The evidence that the shot came from the storm drain is the misinterpretations of conspiracy theorists who think that the shot came from the front on an upward trajectory. They, too, misunderstand the physics, as demonstrated by the Zapruder film, that the killing head shot came from the rear and to the left--meaning the sixth floor of the Book Depository, where multiple witnesses report that they saw Oswald shooting at Kennedy.
Personally, I buy the official story because I visited Dealey Plaza, saw where Oswald shot from, and thought to myself "I could have blown him away from here." It was an easy shot, and CBS replicated it repeatedly with multiple shooters firing the same rifle on a platform at a moving target, on national TV. All shooters hit with at least two shots; several with all three. Funny how conspiracy theorists don't mention that.
As for "I'm a patsy", why would you automatically believe the claims of innocence of someone who shot the president?
Seriously, dude: The conspiracy theorists want to believe, and want to sell books, just like there's a growing cottage industry of 9/11 truthers; in 30 years, there'll be people who honestly, sincerely think that there's reasonable doubt about what happened on 9/11, thanks to a lot of misguided, desperate to be X-files right nutbags with webpages.
You've got legitimate complaints about Obama. Don't taint them with tabloid garbage.
Let's see: Under Bush, North Korea weaponized plutonium, Iran became a dominant regional power, and Iraq has tied up U.S. forces for the foreseeable future.
If I were a murderous tyrant, I'd be sending a bouquet to Bush saying "I already miss you."
Okay. You go ahead slinging the term "bigot" around. Meanwhile, Obama will start to undo the damage that the Clintons did, and that Bush/Rove did. You're obviously more interested in being a victim than in making any real progress.
Yes, I've seen the Zapruder film. I've also seen physics experiments where a skull was filled with paint and shot from behind. The paint shot out a giant hole in the front of the skull, and the skull itself was pushed forcefully back from it by the jet of exiting material, towards the rifle. Any combat vet recognizes from the Zapruder film that the shot came from behind. Bullets make small holes on the way in, and big holes on the way out. Where's the small hole in Kennedy's skull?
It's the laws of physics that tell you that you're wrong about the shot coming from in front. Besides, have you seen Dealey Plaza? There's no where in front for the shot to come from, unless you believe that a sniper could be leaning on the railing of the overpass to take his shot and not get noticed.
I'm sympathetic to not liking Warren, but recognize it for what it is: bridge-building that ultimately strengthens Obama. This is Obama's MO: He acts nice to the opposition, gives them some symbolism, and then does what he should do anyway. It's a bad symbol by a guy with a nearly perfect voting record on gay rights. His team has already gone on record as saying the repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is a lock priority for the first few months.
If he passes pro-gay legislation (as he has in the past), I'll accept him throwing some symbolic bones to the bigots. Would you rather have the law, or the symbol?
Actually, we do know who killed JFK: Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone. The evidence is overwhelming, well documented, well studied, and bascially incontrovertible to anyone who isn't looking for an X-file. This is an open question only to people who want to believe in a conspiracy, who want to believe that a coup took place, who don't want to believe that what obviously happened is what actually happened.
You mention a lot of good criticisms of Obama's choices. Prune some of the crazy from your exposition and you'll have a much more powerful voice.
People like you are the reason Microsoft can't jettison the legacy cruft that people like me complain about. "Why can't MS do what Apple did?" Because there are people who think that Doom 1 should act the same on Vista as on Win95, without issues.
I am of the classical view that corporations are there to make and distribute money.
So when Yahoo hands over subscriber information to the Chinese government so that dissidents can be arrested and tortured, you're okay with that? Since protecting subscribers falls outside the ambit of making and distributing money, it's okay for them to help a repressive regime quell dissent at the cost of people's lives?
The problem with your purist (or perhaps minimalist) view of corporations is that many are large or pervaisve enough to have a significant impact on the social fabric. When GM closes a plant, it can destroy a town. When Enron manipulated energy markets, California suffered. Conversely, when Google extends benefits to same sex partners, it has a huge impact in normalizing gay relationships. Large corporations have large social footprints, and that effect is ignored at the peril of becoming a society shaped by corporate policies rather than democratic expression.
That's not to say that corporations shouldn't primarily make money. But there's a balance to be achieved between not interfering with their money making, and dealing with their impact on the society in which they exist, and on which they depend for their livelihood.
You're right that climbing the ladder doesn't happen, at least in one company. In IT, climbing the ladder means getting a different, better job at another company, which is also the only way to get a big salary bump. But I'm confused by what you mean by "get the job you want for the pay you want or stay in school". What if the job he wants isn't available? How far into student loan debt should he go? What if he can't get the job he wants because he has no experience?
In the end, it's better to work and improve your resume than it is to hold out for the perfect job, if holding out means long periods accumulating debt and no experience.
IT, because it's generally had it so good over the last couple decades, has never developed the notion that you have to "pay your dues" at the beginning, meaning working crappy jobs to build experience to get a better job. Other, more competitive fields, have long had this aspect, so the idea is more familiar.
With the economy in the toilet for now and the next couple years, new IT grads have to pay their dues. Grab the best job you can, which won't be great, do well in it, and constantly look for ways to move up the ladder. The first few years will probably suck in one or several ways, but you're suffering will be rewarded later with better positions. The days of college hotshots walking into six figure jobs are over. Get a job, learn your craft, build your resume, and always watch out for your career.
Bonus advice: the days of socially inept geeks are also over. Social skills are as important as programming skills. The geek who can make friends easily, express himself clearly to non-technical people, and generally get along with everyone else, will always have an advantage over the aspie nerd who can quote machine code but doesn't know to shower every day.
The precondition to negotiations that Hamas "recognize" Israel's "right to exist" is an attempt to get Hamas to agree that Israel be given the privilege of discriminating against non-Jews.
This is pure, unfiltered horseshit. BTW, congratulations on learning the word "inane"--use it once more in a sentence, and it's yours!
I thought I had defined "right to exist" as "able to defend against attempts to destroy them". In other words, continued existence is all that a "right to exist" means in practice.
I'm not arguing that Israel has a right to exist. I'm arguing that the idea of a country having a "right to exist" is largely meaningless outside of whether or not it does, in fact, survive, especially against hostile attempts to destroy it.
Questioning the legitimacy of Israel specifically as a national entity is an attempt to poison the well for them. If they have no right to exist, then anything they do in defense of their existence is by definition wrong, and unjustifiable. I have no idea what "dismantled" means--I've seen others propose it with as little explanation, which is to say that it's an empty idea, full of vague handwaving about the UN relocating the Jews to the jungles of Brazil or something, as if Israelites would cooperate. Likewise, "return the land to the Palestinians" is an idea that's also fraught with complications. I imagine that if Israel were removed tomorrow by transporter beam, the region would still be as bloody in twenty years, just with different color jerseys on each side.
I agree that "might is right" is not an acceptable way of running our civilization in the long run. But saying "might isn't right", and using that to attempt to undo facts on the ground is a non-starter for resolving the conflict.
Peace in northern Ireland was achieved by deciding to deal with each side as is, avoiding the attempt to unwind a long history of injustices on both sides, and finding an acceptable solution that placates the core concerns of each side.
I'm not sure what this means. War is not about 'valid tests', it's about using force to impose your will. On three different occasions, various alliances of Arab neighbors have tried to impose their will on Israel, and failed; now none will try again. There aren't rules or refereed outcomes, there's living or dying. Israel lives. That's one of the basic facts of the equation. Talking about what other countries should or should not do is immaterial. Once war (and I mean real war, not bogus 'war on terror' crap) is reached, we've already failed to work things out in a framework of rules and shoulds and oughts.
In the rather vague OP that started this, "right to exist" means something like "Israel has no right to exist, and so should be dismantled somehow so the land can be returned to its rightful owners, the Palestinians."
"Most successful" means simply that Israel has survived and grown and is in better shape now than it ever was, politically, militarily, and economically. That it has done so on the backs of the Palestinians is not, historically, material, since just about every modern country exists for having displaced an earlier population.
I'm discussing this in realpolitik terms largely because attempts to untangle a long history of competing claims, historical revisionism, legitimate grievances, and bad acts tends to lead into a swamp with no way out, and has little impact on how things actually happen anyway. Israel is there; Palestinians are there. Israel is on top of the struggle between the two, but only in the sense that the rider is on top of the bucking bull. Israel needs to translate their "success" into something less likely to destroy them, and that ultimately means finding a political solution with the Palestinians and the rest.
Slashdot Mirror
It's physically impossible for Kennedy to have been shot from inside the storm drain. First, the Zapruder film exactly locates the limousine wrt to the storm drain, and the limo is not even visible from inside it; second, the storm drain isn't large enough inside to accommodate a rifle aiming out without sticking it halfway into the street; third, a shot from inside would echo like hell, making it obvious that a shot came from there (adding a silencer would just make the rifle longer and more visible); fourth, any trajectory from a storm drain would have been blocked by the body of the limousine. See here for more info: http://www.jfklancer.com/drain1.html
The evidence that the shot came from the storm drain is the misinterpretations of conspiracy theorists who think that the shot came from the front on an upward trajectory. They, too, misunderstand the physics, as demonstrated by the Zapruder film, that the killing head shot came from the rear and to the left--meaning the sixth floor of the Book Depository, where multiple witnesses report that they saw Oswald shooting at Kennedy.
Personally, I buy the official story because I visited Dealey Plaza, saw where Oswald shot from, and thought to myself "I could have blown him away from here." It was an easy shot, and CBS replicated it repeatedly with multiple shooters firing the same rifle on a platform at a moving target, on national TV. All shooters hit with at least two shots; several with all three. Funny how conspiracy theorists don't mention that.
As for "I'm a patsy", why would you automatically believe the claims of innocence of someone who shot the president?
Seriously, dude: The conspiracy theorists want to believe, and want to sell books, just like there's a growing cottage industry of 9/11 truthers; in 30 years, there'll be people who honestly, sincerely think that there's reasonable doubt about what happened on 9/11, thanks to a lot of misguided, desperate to be X-files right nutbags with webpages.
You've got legitimate complaints about Obama. Don't taint them with tabloid garbage.
Let's see: Under Bush, North Korea weaponized plutonium, Iran became a dominant regional power, and Iraq has tied up U.S. forces for the foreseeable future.
If I were a murderous tyrant, I'd be sending a bouquet to Bush saying "I already miss you."
I can't even tell what you're saying there.
The perfect is the enemy of the good. People like you are an obstacle to progress.
Okay. You go ahead slinging the term "bigot" around. Meanwhile, Obama will start to undo the damage that the Clintons did, and that Bush/Rove did. You're obviously more interested in being a victim than in making any real progress.
Yes, I've seen the Zapruder film. I've also seen physics experiments where a skull was filled with paint and shot from behind. The paint shot out a giant hole in the front of the skull, and the skull itself was pushed forcefully back from it by the jet of exiting material, towards the rifle. Any combat vet recognizes from the Zapruder film that the shot came from behind. Bullets make small holes on the way in, and big holes on the way out. Where's the small hole in Kennedy's skull?
It's the laws of physics that tell you that you're wrong about the shot coming from in front. Besides, have you seen Dealey Plaza? There's no where in front for the shot to come from, unless you believe that a sniper could be leaning on the railing of the overpass to take his shot and not get noticed.
Excellent troll. Well-written, very AST.
I'm sympathetic to not liking Warren, but recognize it for what it is: bridge-building that ultimately strengthens Obama. This is Obama's MO: He acts nice to the opposition, gives them some symbolism, and then does what he should do anyway. It's a bad symbol by a guy with a nearly perfect voting record on gay rights. His team has already gone on record as saying the repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is a lock priority for the first few months.
If he passes pro-gay legislation (as he has in the past), I'll accept him throwing some symbolic bones to the bigots. Would you rather have the law, or the symbol?
You left out the 'X' at the end of his name.
You're kidding, right? The fact that Obama was just sworn in means nothing is wrong with the current state of the U.S.?
Okay...
Perhaps because swearing a president in for a second time lacks the historicity of the nation's first black president.
Actually, we do know who killed JFK: Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone. The evidence is overwhelming, well documented, well studied, and bascially incontrovertible to anyone who isn't looking for an X-file. This is an open question only to people who want to believe in a conspiracy, who want to believe that a coup took place, who don't want to believe that what obviously happened is what actually happened.
You mention a lot of good criticisms of Obama's choices. Prune some of the crazy from your exposition and you'll have a much more powerful voice.
Just wait until the Colemak layout guy shows up...
People like you are the reason Microsoft can't jettison the legacy cruft that people like me complain about. "Why can't MS do what Apple did?" Because there are people who think that Doom 1 should act the same on Vista as on Win95, without issues.
FYI, "no" is not a synonym for "one" (or any other number).
So when Yahoo hands over subscriber information to the Chinese government so that dissidents can be arrested and tortured, you're okay with that? Since protecting subscribers falls outside the ambit of making and distributing money, it's okay for them to help a repressive regime quell dissent at the cost of people's lives?
The problem with your purist (or perhaps minimalist) view of corporations is that many are large or pervaisve enough to have a significant impact on the social fabric. When GM closes a plant, it can destroy a town. When Enron manipulated energy markets, California suffered. Conversely, when Google extends benefits to same sex partners, it has a huge impact in normalizing gay relationships. Large corporations have large social footprints, and that effect is ignored at the peril of becoming a society shaped by corporate policies rather than democratic expression.
That's not to say that corporations shouldn't primarily make money. But there's a balance to be achieved between not interfering with their money making, and dealing with their impact on the society in which they exist, and on which they depend for their livelihood.
And after asking the secretary out on a date (successfully), he squeezes her breast as he leaves. Awesome.
My point. The salad days of easy employment in the IT field, just for showing up in the classes, are over.
You're right that climbing the ladder doesn't happen, at least in one company. In IT, climbing the ladder means getting a different, better job at another company, which is also the only way to get a big salary bump. But I'm confused by what you mean by "get the job you want for the pay you want or stay in school". What if the job he wants isn't available? How far into student loan debt should he go? What if he can't get the job he wants because he has no experience?
In the end, it's better to work and improve your resume than it is to hold out for the perfect job, if holding out means long periods accumulating debt and no experience.
IT, because it's generally had it so good over the last couple decades, has never developed the notion that you have to "pay your dues" at the beginning, meaning working crappy jobs to build experience to get a better job. Other, more competitive fields, have long had this aspect, so the idea is more familiar.
With the economy in the toilet for now and the next couple years, new IT grads have to pay their dues. Grab the best job you can, which won't be great, do well in it, and constantly look for ways to move up the ladder. The first few years will probably suck in one or several ways, but you're suffering will be rewarded later with better positions. The days of college hotshots walking into six figure jobs are over. Get a job, learn your craft, build your resume, and always watch out for your career.
Bonus advice: the days of socially inept geeks are also over. Social skills are as important as programming skills. The geek who can make friends easily, express himself clearly to non-technical people, and generally get along with everyone else, will always have an advantage over the aspie nerd who can quote machine code but doesn't know to shower every day.
This is pure, unfiltered horseshit. BTW, congratulations on learning the word "inane"--use it once more in a sentence, and it's yours!
I thought I had defined "right to exist" as "able to defend against attempts to destroy them". In other words, continued existence is all that a "right to exist" means in practice.
I'm not arguing that Israel has a right to exist. I'm arguing that the idea of a country having a "right to exist" is largely meaningless outside of whether or not it does, in fact, survive, especially against hostile attempts to destroy it.
Questioning the legitimacy of Israel specifically as a national entity is an attempt to poison the well for them. If they have no right to exist, then anything they do in defense of their existence is by definition wrong, and unjustifiable. I have no idea what "dismantled" means--I've seen others propose it with as little explanation, which is to say that it's an empty idea, full of vague handwaving about the UN relocating the Jews to the jungles of Brazil or something, as if Israelites would cooperate. Likewise, "return the land to the Palestinians" is an idea that's also fraught with complications. I imagine that if Israel were removed tomorrow by transporter beam, the region would still be as bloody in twenty years, just with different color jerseys on each side.
I agree that "might is right" is not an acceptable way of running our civilization in the long run. But saying "might isn't right", and using that to attempt to undo facts on the ground is a non-starter for resolving the conflict.
Peace in northern Ireland was achieved by deciding to deal with each side as is, avoiding the attempt to unwind a long history of injustices on both sides, and finding an acceptable solution that placates the core concerns of each side.
I'm not sure what this means. War is not about 'valid tests', it's about using force to impose your will. On three different occasions, various alliances of Arab neighbors have tried to impose their will on Israel, and failed; now none will try again. There aren't rules or refereed outcomes, there's living or dying. Israel lives. That's one of the basic facts of the equation. Talking about what other countries should or should not do is immaterial. Once war (and I mean real war, not bogus 'war on terror' crap) is reached, we've already failed to work things out in a framework of rules and shoulds and oughts.
In the rather vague OP that started this, "right to exist" means something like "Israel has no right to exist, and so should be dismantled somehow so the land can be returned to its rightful owners, the Palestinians."
"Most successful" means simply that Israel has survived and grown and is in better shape now than it ever was, politically, militarily, and economically. That it has done so on the backs of the Palestinians is not, historically, material, since just about every modern country exists for having displaced an earlier population.
I'm discussing this in realpolitik terms largely because attempts to untangle a long history of competing claims, historical revisionism, legitimate grievances, and bad acts tends to lead into a swamp with no way out, and has little impact on how things actually happen anyway. Israel is there; Palestinians are there. Israel is on top of the struggle between the two, but only in the sense that the rider is on top of the bucking bull. Israel needs to translate their "success" into something less likely to destroy them, and that ultimately means finding a political solution with the Palestinians and the rest.