Yeah, and ask Mathew Shepard [wikipedia.org] about Christian tolerance. It's easy to find the exception that proves the rule, but the reality is that Christians are hardly better than Muslims in that respect. They just have better PR.
How about if I ask you since he is dead? Could you provide some actual evidence that Christianity played role in his murder, or are you simply engaging in casual libel as a result of unenlightened views or ignorance? From what I see, there doesn't seem to be any evidence of Christian practice or belief involved, quite the contrary. A gay man who took drugs was killed by two drug users/dealers, one of whom was apparently a bisexual. I realize that make the narrative a bit messy, but please, enlighten us.
Former Laramie Police Detective Ben Fritzen, one of the lead investigators in the case, also believed robbery was the primary motive. "Matthew Shepard's sexual preference or sexual orientation certainly wasn't the motive in the homicide," he said.
"If it wasn't Shepard, they would have found another easy target. What it came down to really is drugs and money and two punks that were out looking for it," Fritzen said. New Details Emerge in Matthew Shepard Murder
O'Connor says he never heard McKinney express any anti-gay attitudes. In his interview with Vargas, O'Connor reveals his belief that McKinney is bisexual. "I know of an instance where he had a three-way, two guys and one gal," he said. "Because he did it with me."
Asked directly whether he targeted and attacked Shepard because he was gay, McKinney told Vargas, "No. I did not.... I would say it wasn't a hate crime. All I wanted to do was beat him up and rob him."
But if the attackers were just trying to rob someone to get a drug fix, why did they beat Shepard so savagely?
Rerucha attributes McKinney's rage and his savage beating of Shepard to his drug abuse. "The methamphetamine just fueled to this point where there was no control. It was a horrible, horrible, horrible murder. It was a murder that was once again driven by drugs," Rerucha said.
Dr. Rick Rawson, a professor at UCLA who has studied the link between methamphetamine and violence, tells "20/20" the drug can trigger episodes of violent behavior.
"In the first weeks after you've stopped using it, the kinds of triggers that can set off an episode are completely unpredictable. It can be: you say a word with the wrong inflection, you touch someone on the shoulder. It's completely unpredictable as to what will set somebody off" Rawson said. New Details Emerge in Matthew Shepard Murder
Another widely held belief about the case is that McKinney and Shepard had never met before their fateful encounter at the Fireside Lounge. But a number of sources tell "20/20" the two were not strangers.
"Everybody knew Matt Shepard was a partier just like Aaron, just like the rest of us," said Bopp.
In fact, Bopp said he had seen Shepard and McKinney together at parties. "Aaron was selling [drugs] and him and Matt would go off to the side and they'd come back. And Matt would be doing some meth then," he said.
Though they frequented the same party scene, McKinney maintains he had never met Shepard before the night of the crime and wonders why people might
Well hey haw...guy....Hmmm... haw.... Are you by any chance a relation to Lord Haw... Haw? Well, never mind.
So, what sort of "education" do you suppose Gulet Mohamed was seeking in Somalia at a time when numerous other Somali Americans were returning to Somalia for training in extremist Islam, terrorism, and to engage in Jihad? (A number of them became suicide bombers.) Do you have any thoughts on that?
Although the Somalis I've met or worked with seem pleseant enough, clearly not all of them are.
Take this for example from last month:
The FBI arrested Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a 19—year—old Somali—born American, for plotting to detonate a bomb as thousands of people attended the lighting of the Christmas tree in the centre of Portland, Oregon. Anwar al-Awlaki: terror plots linked to Yemen-based cleric
The Somalis are not the only ones engaging in so called Jihad. This Pakistani American who performed some curious travel to Pakistan was also a menace - he tried to detonate a bomb in Times Square.
I'm sure you must have some "progressive" ideas on the matter. Do you want to torture them too to get an answer, or only white people?
I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favour to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. - Ecclesiastes 9:11
Driving after smoking even a small amount of marijuana almost doubles the risk of a fatal highway accident, according to an extensive study of 10,748 drivers involved in fatal crashes between 2001 and 2003. A study by the French National Institute for Transport and Safety Research published in the British Medical Journal found that seven percent of drivers involved in a fatal highway crash used marijuana.
The researchers estimated that at least 2.5 percent of the 10,748 fatal crashes studied were directly caused by the use of marijuana.
The researchers concluded that the risk of being responsible for a fatal crash increased as the blood concentration of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, increased. Even small amounts of marijuana could double the chance of a driver suffering an accident, researchers said, and larger doses could more than triple the risk.
Long-term marijuana abuse can lead to addiction; that is, compulsive drug seeking and abuse despite the known harmful effects upon functioning in the context of family, school, work, and recreational activities. Estimates from research suggest that about 9 percent of users become addicted to marijuana; this number increases among those who start young (to about 17 percent) and among daily users (25-50 percent).
Long-term marijuana abusers trying to quit report withdrawal symptoms including: irritability, sleeplessness, decreased appetite, anxiety, and drug craving, all of which can make it difficult to remain abstinent. These symptoms begin within about 1 day following abstinence, peak at 2-3 days, and subside within 1 or 2 weeks following drug cessation.3
Two decades ago, addiction medicine doctors and counselors believed that the difference between substance abuse and substance dependence was whether tolerance and withdrawal were present. Now it is known that, although tolerance or withdrawal may occur in individuals with addiction, the condition of addiction can exist without any sign of tolerance or withdrawal. Still, a common question of interest is, does marijuana produce physical dependence (that is, tolerance or withdrawal)?
By the twenty-first century, the answers to these questions are clear. Tolerance does develop to THC (the active chemical in marijuana). Moreover, withdrawal definitely occurs in some users. The effects of this withdrawal are generally the opposite of the effects of intoxication: anxiety and insomnia instead of relaxation; loss of appetite rather than hunger; excessive salivation instead of dry mouth; and also decreased pulse, irritability, and sometimes tremor. People who have used marijuana as a way to control underlying anger may also experience irritability, increased mood swings, and even an increase in aggressive behavior, as symptoms of withdrawal.
Man what is happening over there in the US? Didn't you guys start off as the good guys? When did it all start to go so horribly wrong?
The Americans still are the good guys. The problem is that most Leftists and many Europeans can no longer distinguish true friend from foe, good from evil. It doesn't matter how good the US is, they can't recognize it. It is kind of similar to the way that anti-Semitism is rapidly growing in Europe.
Unless trends reverse, I expect there will be major wars in Europe in our lifetime.
Still an overreach, don;t you think? Is ioerror to be tried under the same code? Why should personal data of a foreign person matter in UCMJ violations?
Don't worry your pretty head, there are criminal statues that can be used if need be, not just military ones.
How about a US citizen who's been arrested and tortured in Kuwait, and has been put in a no-fly-list by the boogie-man-fearing DHS, and for what reason? He's of Somalian origin, moved to Virginia as a baby, US citizen, but traveled to study to Somalia, it was too dangerous, so he moved to Kuwait
So, you think there's no chance whatsoever that he is part of a bunch like this?
Sixth area Somali man is indicted in probe
Mohamed, of Minneapolis, is the sixth Somali man with local ties to be charged in connection with a two-year-old federal counterterrorism investigation aimed at finding out who recruited as many as 20 area men of Somali descent to return to their homeland and train and fight with the terrorist group, Al-Shabaab. The probe is considered to be one of the most sweeping international counterterrorism investigations since Sept. 11, 2001.
No, the US stated off as a bunch of terrorists in the 1770s
Rebels against the British crown, yes. Terrorists, no.
It took a long time to earn Good Guy status. The real respect came from WWII and its aftermath.
Well, actually, various parts of Europe were very glad to have our help in WW1, and the Boxer Rebellion. And we did pretty well against Spain in the war. And suppressing the pirates of Tripoli was worth a few notches as well. And that is ignoring American economic power and inventiveness.
Sad that the respect is being squandered.
I wouldn't worry too much about that. The Left and various others in Europe will never really like the US even if its political institutions heel to their wishes. They have been howling about various American policies since before you were born, even when it was in their interest.
It will probably come as a surprise to many people, both friend and foe alike, that I am opposed to any attempt to fire Ward Churchill for the essay (now part of a book) that has become notorious in which he denounces his own country as a genocidal empire, supports America's terrorist enemies, and says that 9/11 was a case of the "chickens coming home to roost."
We live in country whose cornerstone document is a Bill of Rights that guarantees Americans a right to make fools of themselves if they so desire. State institutions like the University of Colorado are forbidden by our Constitution from firing people for expressing opinions, however offensive, idiotic or evil (and Churchill's comments on 9/11 qualify as all three). If, on the other hand, as some have charged, Churchill is not really a Native American as he claims, then of course he should be fired for fraud.
Yes, Churchill is a self-declared ally of our enemies in the terrorist war against us. But so are many academic leftists, including those now rallying to his defense. A decent university system with serious academic standards would probably not have hired Churchill in the first place, let alone promoted him to a position of responsibility and honor as the chair of the Ethnic Studies Department. But that does not give the regents of the university the right to fire him because he has embarrassed them now.
The real question is why wasn't anybody embarrassed before? In 1998, to cite one example, Churchill published a book - Pacificism as Pathology - which was essentially an argument for violent revolution to overthrow America's democracy. It was dedicated to an American terrorist who blew herself up while making a bomb intended to kill Army recruits and their dates at a social dance at Fort Dix. Why weren't any of his colleagues or superiors upset about this?
Churchill is most widely known, in fact, for his academic writings in defense of the Black Panthers, a leftist gang that murdered a dozen people, and for his academic treatises accusing America of plotting and carrying out genocide against minorities throughout its history.
Those who marvel at the current spectacle should keep in mind the fact that there is absolutely nothing new here, nothing that has not been not publicly known for years. The offending essay itself was published three years ago. No, whatever sin he has committed has not only been a matter of public record for more than 30 years, it has been reviewed over and over by duly constituted academic authorities at CU. The opinions that have suddenly catapulted this professor into the limelight have been examined and applauded by his university professors, the search-and-hiring committees that put him on the faculty of CU-Boulder, the promotion-and-tenure committees that made him a full professor, and the department that elected him chair.
In sum, Churchill's views, which are both hateful and ignorant, represent the views a substantial segment of the academic community at Boulder and on campuses generally. Robert Jensen, a leftist professor at the University of Texas whom I have debated on TV over the Churchill matter, fully shares Churchill's views that America should lose the war on terror and that the terrorists are in fact "resistance" fighters opposing the American empire. A well-known required text for "Peace Studies" programs authored by two professors at well-known universities teaches students that the word "terrorist" describes the American Founders, that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" and that America is the world's "most terrorist state." Churchill's new book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, which contains his offending essay, is up for a Gustavus Myers Awar
I think of scams as cheating someone. The growers, distributors, and consumers are consenting adults happily do business with each other. The only scam I see is big, intrusive government types propping up a failed policy.
On the contrary, the growers and distributors are cheating the consumers. They allow them to believe that it is a harmless product, when that isn't really true.
Young adults who used marijuana as teens were more likely than those who didn’t to develop schizophrenia and psychotic symptoms including hallucinations and delusions, an Australian study found.
Those who used the drug for six or more years were twice as likely to develop a psychosis such as schizophrenia or to have delusional disorders than those who never used marijuana, according to research released online by the Archives of General Psychiatry. They were also four times as likely to score high on a list of psychotic-like experiences.
The findings build on previous research and shows that marijuana use isn’t as harmless as some people think, lead study author John McGrath said yesterday in an e-mail. The study was the first to look at sibling pairs to discount genetic or environmental influence and still find marijuana linked to later psychosis, the authors said in the study.
I've long thought military recruitment strategies were targeted at lesser brains...
Your views are uninformed. The American military is on average better educated than the population.
Who Serves in the U.S. Military? The Demographics of Enlisted Troops and Officers American soldiers are more educated than their peers. A little more than 1 percent of enlisted personnel lack a high school degree, compared to 21 percent of men 18-24 years old, and 95 percent of officer accessions have at least a bachelor's degree.
The same thing happened in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, so what else nis new?
The same thing currently occurs in governments and militaries around the world, including Europe. It isn't sinister, that is just the way the world works, no Nazis or Communists needed.
A lot of things that are banal and boring are marked Top Secret in order to prevent sub-contractors from hiring foreign workers... It's not that the information itself is or needs to be Top Secret but marking it so is a way to keep jobs local...
Nonsense. A lot of things labeled Top Secret are banal and boring because much of the day to day project work most people do is banal and boring even if it is top secret and involves technology, and has to be protected against disclosure due to the possible damage to national security. Project plans, status reports, engineering reports, budget updates, progress reviews, test reports, system design - none of them are exciting, but are necessary, and have to be protected if the purpose of the project is to be protected. If the purpose of developing a top secret device or process is to give your country a competitive advantage in some manner, such as war fighting, it doesn't make sense to have knowledge of the existence, cost, size, scope, or technical details compromised by employing a cheap typing service in some third world country, does it?
In any event, American law allows employment restrictions based on citizenship where national security is involved, it doesn't take a security classification to do that. (Bummer, eh?)
This are only two of many investigations into Acorn misdeeds:
More Acorn Voter Fraud Comes to Light On Monday, Nevada officials charged Acorn, its regional director and its Las Vegas field director with submitting thousands of fraudulent voter registration forms last year. Larry Lomax, the registrar of voters in Las Vegas, says he believes 48% of Acorn's forms "are clearly fraudulent." On Thursday, prosecutors in Pittsburgh, Pa., also charged seven Acorn employees with filing hundreds of fraudulent voter registrations before last year's general election.
An yet, oddly enough, Wikileaks is providing funds for Mannings defense.... it just happens to fall far short of what was expected, or needed.
So far, Paterson said Manning's American supporters have raised about $50,000, and they had reached an earlier verbal agreement with WikiLeaks to cover the rest after WikiLeaks began publicly soliciting funds on Manning's behalf in July.
However, WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said last week they would be donating only $20,000 to the funds. Late Tuesday, Hrafnsson said in an e-mail to The Washington Post that there had been a misunderstanding about the status of the payment had been "rectified" and the "payment is being processed now." Is WikiLeaks Reneging on its Financial Promise to Bradley Manning?
There are a couple of good excuses, actually, both of which are squarely on point to his case. One is the oath of office, the other is the Nuremberg principles.
He violated his oath, betrayed his country, and Nuremberg never came into it.
The United States will be paying the price for his hissy fit for years to come.
American diplomacy is in shambles. (Hopefully the Wikileaks revelation that China was willing to see North Korea go under doesn't push them into war, which is where they may be heading now.)
Consider that cable about US Treasury funds ultimately being used to buy children for sex.
Not quite.
In the Afghanistan case, both DynCorp and the State Department say what occurred was far less sinister than portrayed in such reports.
According to a detailed statement provided by DynCorp spokeswoman Ashley Burke, a going-away party for a departing Afghan employee was held at the regional police training center in Kunduz. The party organizer, a local employee, hired "a 17-year-old local dancer who performed at... weddings and other celebrations, to perform a traditional Afghan dance."
Shortly after the dancing began, a DynCorp manager "recognizing that the situation was culturally insensitive... stopped the performance," according to the statement.
The company conducted its own investigation of the matter, "determined that the leadership of the team exhibited poor judgment and were subsequently terminated. That is the whole story; no alcohol or drugs were involved, or other illegal behaviors occurred."
The State Department concurred, saying there were no drugs, no alcohol and no boys procured for sex.
"There was no evidence of any of that," said Susan Pittman, spokeswoman for the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement.
Both the bureau and the Office of the Inspector General investigated the matter, Pittman said, including reviewing videos of the party.
For several days after the leaked memo was published, DynCorp's Burke said, none of the online media writing about it bothered to contact the company or the State Department. Eventually, one blog, TalkingPointsMemo, did and reported the company and State Department side of the story.
The leaked memo says the Afghanistan government was prosecuting two Afghan police officers and nine other persons for "the crime of purchasing a service from a child."
Publication of the leaked memo didn't actually break any news. The Washington Post reported on the party in a July 2009 article about DynCorp. The Post said the company was taking steps to strengthen its ethics and employee behavior standards in response to U.S. government criticisms and, in part, because of the party with the boy dancer DynCorp disputes WikiLeaks allegations
.... that sets up Assange as a relatively sane person within the organization, which is contrary to the spin I've been hearing -- that the other collaborators thought he was unstable or a big ego or some such.
“I am the heart and soul of this organization, its founder, philosopher, spokesperson, original coder, organizer, financier and all the rest,”... “If you have a problem with me, piss off.” --- Julian Assange writing to Herbert Snorrason
Slashdot Mirror
And pardon me, the left doesn't specialize in slander, hate speech and distorted ideologies.
I didn't realize that you were such a comedian. Have you ever considered taking that act to Vegas?
The progressive “climate of hate:” An illustrated primer, 2000-2010
Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco
Sirhan Sirhan dedication backfires on Bill Ayers 36 years later
Acid Rhetoric Flashbacks
SEIU protesters descend on bank exec’s home, terrifying his son
Leftist groups plan a riot as Oakland boards up downtown
The Manchurian Candidate
Are Communists (or neo-Communists) Dangerous?
The Surreal World of the Progressive Left
Encounters with the Left
5 Reasons the Environmentalists’ 1010 Fantasy Film of Blowing Up Non-Conformists Is Bigger Than You Think
Extreme BDS watch: Vermont group wants to overthrow the Bush administration
Yeah, and ask Mathew Shepard [wikipedia.org] about Christian tolerance. It's easy to find the exception that proves the rule, but the reality is that Christians are hardly better than Muslims in that respect. They just have better PR.
How about if I ask you since he is dead? Could you provide some actual evidence that Christianity played role in his murder, or are you simply engaging in casual libel as a result of unenlightened views or ignorance? From what I see, there doesn't seem to be any evidence of Christian practice or belief involved, quite the contrary. A gay man who took drugs was killed by two drug users/dealers, one of whom was apparently a bisexual. I realize that make the narrative a bit messy, but please, enlighten us.
If they were doing meth, they were probably doing pot too.
Long-Time Marijuana Use Linked to Psychosis in Young Adults
Well hey haw...guy....Hmmm... haw.... ... Haw?
Are you by any chance a relation to Lord Haw
Well, never mind.
So, what sort of "education" do you suppose Gulet Mohamed was seeking in Somalia at a time when numerous other Somali Americans were returning to Somalia for training in extremist Islam, terrorism, and to engage in Jihad? (A number of them became suicide bombers.) Do you have any thoughts on that?
Although the Somalis I've met or worked with seem pleseant enough, clearly not all of them are.
Take this for example from last month:
The Somalis are not the only ones engaging in so called Jihad. This Pakistani American who performed some curious travel to Pakistan was also a menace - he tried to detonate a bomb in Times Square.
I'm sure you must have some "progressive" ideas on the matter. Do you want to torture them too to get an answer, or only white people?
So is alcohol. I suspect more people are killed by drunks than by the stoned
Probably true, but marijuana use is still a significant risk to that percentage of the population that uses it and then drives.
Long-Time Marijuana Use Linked to Psychosis in Young Adults
Respiratory Effects of Marijuana and Tobacco Use in a U.S. Sample
Emphysema linked to smoking marijuana
Man what is happening over there in the US? Didn't you guys start off as the good guys? When did it all start to go so horribly wrong?
The Americans still are the good guys. The problem is that most Leftists and many Europeans can no longer distinguish true friend from foe, good from evil. It doesn't matter how good the US is, they can't recognize it. It is kind of similar to the way that anti-Semitism is rapidly growing in Europe.
Unless trends reverse, I expect there will be major wars in Europe in our lifetime.
Still an overreach, don;t you think? Is ioerror to be tried under the same code? Why should personal data of a foreign person matter in UCMJ violations?
Don't worry your pretty head, there are criminal statues that can be used if need be, not just military ones.
How about a US citizen who's been arrested and tortured in Kuwait, and has been put in a no-fly-list by the boogie-man-fearing DHS, and for what reason? He's of Somalian origin, moved to Virginia as a baby, US citizen, but traveled to study to Somalia, it was too dangerous, so he moved to Kuwait
So, you think there's no chance whatsoever that he is part of a bunch like this?
Interesting. Why not?
No, the US stated off as a bunch of terrorists in the 1770s
Rebels against the British crown, yes. Terrorists, no.
It took a long time to earn Good Guy status. The real respect came from WWII and its aftermath.
Well, actually, various parts of Europe were very glad to have our help in WW1, and the Boxer Rebellion. And we did pretty well against Spain in the war. And suppressing the pirates of Tripoli was worth a few notches as well. And that is ignoring American economic power and inventiveness.
Sad that the respect is being squandered.
I wouldn't worry too much about that. The Left and various others in Europe will never really like the US even if its political institutions heel to their wishes. They have been howling about various American policies since before you were born, even when it was in their interest.
When we found out someone already lived here.
A positively Churchillian response.....
Ward Churchill, to be specific. If we are going to have that, then we should have some Horowitz.
In a nutshell, yes.
I'm sure that if anyone were falsely accused of being a leaker, they would no doubt have swift access to just recourse. This is the West, after all.
No doubt they would, just as soon as the investigation is done. There must be evidence at hearings. This is the West, after all.
If someone ends up in a such a situation and reports the contrary, their testimony is likely tainted because they are a dirty rotten leaker.
Although one would hope not, it's very possible.... very possible.
Ultimately, we are all safer somehow.
I quite agree. Preventing the outing of informants against terrorist groups when they fund and train terrorists who attempt attacks in our cities is a good thing.
I think of scams as cheating someone. The growers, distributors, and consumers are consenting adults happily do business with each other. The only scam I see is big, intrusive government types propping up a failed policy.
On the contrary, the growers and distributors are cheating the consumers. They allow them to believe that it is a harmless product, when that isn't really true.
On the other hand...
Long-Time Marijuana Use Linked to Psychosis in Young Adults
I've long thought military recruitment strategies were targeted at lesser brains...
Your views are uninformed. The American military is on average better educated than the population.
The same thing happened in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, so what else nis new?
The same thing currently occurs in governments and militaries around the world, including Europe. It isn't sinister, that is just the way the world works, no Nazis or Communists needed.
Apparently that is news to you.
A lot of things that are banal and boring are marked Top Secret in order to prevent sub-contractors from hiring foreign workers... It's not that the information itself is or needs to be Top Secret but marking it so is a way to keep jobs local...
Nonsense. A lot of things labeled Top Secret are banal and boring because much of the day to day project work most people do is banal and boring even if it is top secret and involves technology, and has to be protected against disclosure due to the possible damage to national security. Project plans, status reports, engineering reports, budget updates, progress reviews, test reports, system design - none of them are exciting, but are necessary, and have to be protected if the purpose of the project is to be protected. If the purpose of developing a top secret device or process is to give your country a competitive advantage in some manner, such as war fighting, it doesn't make sense to have knowledge of the existence, cost, size, scope, or technical details compromised by employing a cheap typing service in some third world country, does it?
In any event, American law allows employment restrictions based on citizenship where national security is involved, it doesn't take a security classification to do that. (Bummer, eh?)
It's hard enough just dealing with American citizens.
It wasn't voter fraud you fucking retard
Saw your post, thought I would help out.
This are only two of many investigations into Acorn misdeeds:
The post you quote is a fabrication. The article is 7 years old. That can see that here.
You've been duped.
That article wasn't published today - it is 7 years old. You can see that here.
An yet, oddly enough, Wikileaks is providing funds for Mannings defense.... it just happens to fall far short of what was expected, or needed.
There are a couple of good excuses, actually, both of which are squarely on point to his case. One is the oath of office, the other is the Nuremberg principles.
He violated his oath, betrayed his country, and Nuremberg never came into it.
He got the so called 'Collateral Murder' thing wrong.
The United States will be paying the price for his hissy fit for years to come.
American diplomacy is in shambles. (Hopefully the Wikileaks revelation that China was willing to see North Korea go under doesn't push them into war, which is where they may be heading now.)
Consider that cable about US Treasury funds ultimately being used to buy children for sex.
Not quite.
And the matter of 'Collateral Murder'?
“
Julian Assange paid two thirds of WikiLeaks salary budget