Thank you! It blows my mind that one screwup soldier makes everyone in the military a demon is a perfectly accepted reasoning. But one Arab strapping a bomb to his chest does not justify demonizing all of them. Its insane that nobody seems to want to admit individual responsibilities for actions when talking about 'the enemy' but is quick to accept it when defending their side.
There are idiot asshole soldiers just like there are idiot asshole muslims, that doesn't speak for the whole group or even the majority! But a bunch of asshats have decided it does and now we have two large groups in charge with one screaming all arabs are evil bomb em all, and another screaming all soldiers are evil the muslims should kill them all! In the meantime soldiers are being sent to die by their 'supporters' as well as their detractors, and precious few Americans seem concerned about the father, son, brother, neighbor that gets killed or maimed in Iraq in this mess, only that he is a murderer and rapist because he happens to work with a few idiot assholes that are pathetic excuses for humans.
How many good soldiers doing good things does it take to make up for the few morons screwing things up? The bad things carry a lot more weight because that is how the news works (again go look at local news and see the same thing that has nothing to do with this whole Iraq business, local news would make a nice peaceful community look like you are going to get shot for walking to your mailbox, its called ratings), it doesn't help that its popular to hate America these days because our leaders have pretty much screwed the pooch with our credibility on ANYTHING, but again that has precious little to do with the troops on the ground, they are just a convenient scapegoat because they are the ones stuck in the actual shit hole.
People seem to forget the vast majority of the killing over there is people driving car bombs into populated areas. So everyone loves to trot out the death tolls without actually attributing the number of deaths to the correct groups. I agree its a god damned mess over there, that our leadership sent the military over there on some REALLY sketchy reasoning, then back peddle and find new reasoning, and then back peddle and find new reasoning. Its disgusting. But I am so freaking sick of hearing people demonize the military for this crap. No one wants to talk about how many more people have electricity now, or water, or food, or are going to school, or are getting news from the outside world that isn't state sponsored crap. I think the worthless bastards that get convicted of the rape and torture and whatnot should just be stripped of their uniforms and dropped off in downtown Baghdad and let the locals handle them. It is disgusting that they do this, but its even more infuriating that the media and the populace insist that we are all murdering torturers because of the few idiot assholes when the vast majority aren't. It also pisses me off that the media portrays Iraqi's as backwards or unintelligent just being victimized by Americans. The ones I spoke with used better English than half the people in the US, they are incredibly educated, and their lives were crushed by Saddam's horrible rule, he took an incredibly prosperous country and flushed it.
YOU are missing something here. Picture those same couple hundred thousand, building schools, fixing power plants, guarding neighborhoods, and then ONE shoots your wife. Your argument here is the same as it is for racism. One black guy shoots your wife, so all black guys can't be trusted! No, just that one idiot asshole that did it, the rest of them are pretty much good people.
Statistical sampling is great when you are dealing with things that it applies to well. Coin tosses for example...a coin doesn't have a good day, a bad day, or really much of a choice. A coin doesn't have its words taken out of context. And most importantly coins don't generally have emotional lunatics on either side chanting with a fervor about how the coin should always be heads or always be tails. I'm saying they talked to people, and that most of those people were probably coming out of combat zones, where they have had a long string of bad days.
You are terribly confused about what I said. I said you think you are some expert on the state of the troops and can make all of these wonderful decision calls on it and how all troops are screwed up. I'm freaking glad the Pentagon is the one doing the study, because it means they have a little more insight into what the answers mean, and what was asked, and specifically how it was asked. You are just being an armchair quarterback reading media snippets and making broad judgement calls on how a very small statistical sampling of people with ever shifting opinions make. There are approximately 1.1 million Army members counting active and reserve, they talked to a little over 1000 as cited by your link. Now since you are so hot shit to explain to me how I deny statistical sampling, would you care to explain in what field that approximately.09% sampling is valid enough for you to make these broad sweeping claims? Oh and by the way, be sure to use coins that can change their results after being flipped. Now also that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the Air Force, Navy, or Marines.
"of the 1,320 soldiers and 447 Marines covered in the survey"
So because 179 marines said they wouldn't report it that means that 40% of ALL marines wouldn't report it? I'm so terribly happy that you are so good at buzz and alarmism and so horrible at math, it wouldn't be nearly as much fun to laugh at this. I would be willing to put large ammounts of money that every single last one of them that answered they wouldn't report has spent at least a significant ammount of time in actual real bullet flying people dying combat. Because the kind of stress that puts on a young guy trying to survive, making it through the realization that this is all real, and that his friends are dying around him...well they start to get a little twitchy and suspicious since the enemy is terribly good at pretending to be innocent noncombatants. So not that its a good thing by any means, or that it should be condoned, or that it should not be looked into, but this overblown media hype about what it really means is just disgusting. I don't think it means they go hunting down civilians to hurt, it most likely means that they wouldn't report someone misidentifying a target and hitting someone who probably wasn't in the fight.
I don't like what is going on over there right now, but idiots like you are no better than the assholes who send Americans over there in the first place. A bunch of civilians living a relatively cushy lifestyle who have never had to live in a combat zone suddenly are experts on combat and able to pass judgment and make 'expert' decisions about it. The only difference is the people who send the Americans over there get paid for it, but you all do it.
Those aren't facts those are misguided opinions with no real evidence.
1. I am not and have not ever been very poor, nor were most of the people I served with. That only the poor bullshit is a line that frequently gets trotted out because the ultraprivlidged manage to dodge the bullet on service, but that does NOT mean that the people who are serving are only the poor and I resent your bigoted classification.
2. Unless you served both in Vietnam and in Iraq you are hardly qualified to say this, and I sincerely doubt you did either. Once again I have served with a great many outstanding leaders that have been put in a horribly unfortunate position of fighting this conflict (its not a war, lets get that straight). Rummy and the Shrub have dictated insane policies and have cut our service to the bone while attempting to fight on two fronts. Now just in case you missed your history lessons, the military leaders in vietnam werent the problem, it was congress and crew dictating how to fight the war with stupid policy and target restrictions.
3. Every group on the planet has its scum, and you insist on pointing at the few that get trotted out in the media and saying that everyone is a model of that person in the military, further you continue with this only the poor bullshit line. Oh and very clever AbuGrave did you think of that yourself or is that your groupthink helping you there? I am glad you can make such promises as to how it all went down, maybe you should just go ahead and testify that you know all the answers and you can clear this whole mess right up so easily.
I am so fucking sick of assholes like you trotting out this bullshit that because I am proud of the military and I am proud of my service that I am proud of what the CIVILIANS ordered us to do. Remember that ugly little truth? That the constitution demands a military controlled by the public? I seriously can't believe that you are defending Saddam saying he kept the killing to a minimum...so you support Rummy before the war but not after the war? Good lord...so its ok for us to support Saddam and his murderous regime and ethnic cleansing, but its not ok for us to do anything about it. (Now I think our pretense for going there in the first place is about as strong as a wet tissue, but its a little late to argue about why we shouldn't be there because we are there now and we need to find a way to make things right and not continue to play assinine politics with soldiers lives). I defended a pathetic attack on the character of all military members based on the actions of a few low integrity pieces of shit and suddenly I am a flag waving boot stomping murderous imperialistic monster? I have served, I know how it works, and I know that the vast majority of people I worked with were of the highest caliber, but I also know that there were more than a few that were worthless pricks, and contrary to popular belief MOST of the worthless pricks don't make it all that far.
I think linux users are probably more likely to pay for a game than windows users as long as we go down that road. I mean really the linux user is 100% legal in his usage of free software and is likely to just go buy the game because he doesn't run in the warez scene to get his software. The windows user who is probably running a pirate version is probably out downloading illegal software as we speak. Ultimately any given linux user is more likely to be using 100% legal software. And that is my stereotypical rant for the day.
You make me sick. The number of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines over there doing good things for the locals VASTLY outnumbers your disgusting stereotypes. Yes that shit happened and more than a few service members we upset by it too, because ignorant asshats like you start running around proclaiming that everyone is doing it. How much charity have you done for the people over there? I have known airmen that have setup donation programs for the kids out there for blankets, food, clothing. These men and women giving up their precious off duty time (which you have terribly little of out there) and their own money to reach out to the local community and help. I bet you don't know anything about the parts of northern Iraq where the locals have announced that for every American killed or kidnapped in their community they will hunt down and kill 100 of these little militia members running around causing problems.
I'm sorry for the 3 people you know that came back. I know a few that didn't come back, and I know hundreds who have been over there for months to years. I suppose the fact that I was there makes me a baby killing, civilian raping, prisoner torturing asshole too huh? Well I'm certainly glad that the people like you are far away from the field and with no weapons, the 15-20 iraqi locals riding on a flatbed doing random work on the base (trash, sandbags, etc) all started waving and smiling at our group on my first day there. I would much rather be surrounded by the people that see that the military is doing its best to try and help (far from the politicians goals).
Go watch your local news and see how many 'good deeds' type stuff gets reported, and then see how many murderous rampages and serial killings get reported, and how much coverage each gets. Then ask "gee, I wonder what more people watch and where they get their ratings". Then think for just one moment "I wonder if the news channels are doing the same thing with the war that they do with our local news, showing the most disturbing and horrific things for ratings and glossing over the mundane and good because noone pays attention to it".
Texting while driving has no benefit worth the risk. There is no harmless cola version of texting while driving. It's dangerous and stupid and quite frankly should already be considered inattentive driving (a ticketable offense) if not outright reckless driving. I think its dumb that they are making a law for this as it should already be covered by existing laws. Somewhat like congress passes a bill to outlaw illegal wiretaps. The idea that there is some lost freedom by not being allowed to text while driving is the same idea that I would lose some freedom by not being allowed to get drunk while driving. If you are driving that is what you should be doing, you are operating a heavy machine at high speeds. People take driving for granted and get complacent. That is risky and deadly. You don't like it, don't drive. People seem to think they have some inherent right to drive, they don't. The government built the roads, the government maintains the roads, the government licenses people to use the roads, the government gets to set the rules for using their roads...this is actually one of those areas that the government SHOULD be responsible for maintaining and regulating. You have two legs and can walk around texting all day long if you like, if you walk into a pole because you weren't paying attention its not likely to hurt anyone else. People confuse freedom with the right to do anything you damn well please regardless of the risk to anyone around you.
Bottom line is that texting while driving is not 'non-harmful activities'. Given the number of deadly accidents I have seen due to drivers doing anything from eating lunch, putting on makeup, playing with cellphones, or messing with their new 10,000 button super stereo...I'm not inclined to be upset by this law at all. Its stupid, its risky, and everytime I see someone doing it I pray they wrap themselves around a telephone pole or fly off the road before they hit someone else who wasn't engaging in that kind of risk. Explain the benefit of texting while driving to johnny and sally while the paramedics peel their parents off the dashboard because Skippy in oncoming traffic was sending 'lol u r hot! wont 2 get 2gether 2nite?' to someone he met on myspace.
I'm happy you know where Estonia is, do you know where your local government is? (city, county, state?)
I'm ashamed at our poor math and reasoning skills as evident here. "Significant percentage" unfortunately was meant to be "Insignificant percentage" because if all you do is pay lip service to the anti-shrub and don't DO anything you might as well be supporting him. He has proven quite clearly that he doesn't listen to much of anything. The neo-con's don't thing war is a solution, they think fear is a solution, they want you to FEAR everything so they can do anything they want to "keep you safe" be it war, wiretaps, etc.
You sound like your upset and I understand your resentment of the smug stereotyping of Americans. Unfortunately these days saying Americans are dumb is almost on par with Africans are black. I mean sure there are a handful of exceptions, but its not really stereotyping when its overwhelmingly true.
I keep hoping and waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel. When its no longer cool to be stupid. When we will have a progressive government that isn't a bunch of asshats writing for lobbyists. In the mean time we are looking like having yet another neo-con president after this one. Not that I have specific dislike for Obama, I absolutely loathe Hillary, but the Dems are given the opportunity of "The election you cannot lose!" after 8 years of Bush with an approval rating in the 20-30% range. What do they do...they run a black candidate (again, I don't care, but watch America carefully, they say ooh its no big deal but as soon as it looks like 'that nigger is gunna win' things will change) and they run a worthless cutthroat insane sellout bitch of a woman candidate who is likely to be the one who destroys the Obama campaign for the R camp. Now on the R side we have Ghouliani and the Newt. Remember folks the Dems were the runs that ran Kerry vs Bush on the "I'm not Bush" campaign AND LOST. A turnip could have beaten Bush and they ran Kerry in another "The election we have to try to lose".
I will never accept laws that crush my freedom to drink a liter of rum and drive a truck through your front door either! Stick it to the man. Its like the handsfree cellphone nonsense....oooh look I'm handsfree so I'm safe now BZZZZT wrong answer they have shown repeatedly that talking on the cellphone is the dangerous and distracting part, not just holding it. They have also shown that talking to people in the car with you is significantly less distracting and that other passengers are able to take visual cues of the driving condition and take pauses accordingly. Now I don't suppose I can argue the kid in the back seat, so maybe we should just outlaw having kids, would sure as hell fix a bunch of our other problems.
Your ability to use the technology isnt being nanny-stated away, thats like saying your ability to drink and drive is being nanny-stated away. By engaging in that activity you become a hazard to yourself and to others (to others being the key part that stops the nanny-state claim). Now I agree that seatbelt laws are nanny-state nonsense, I believe we should get rid of seatbelt laws immediately, same with helmet laws. If numbnuts wants to be stupid and risk himself not wearing a helmet or seatbelt or whatever other safety device...so be it...no skin of my back...most likely skin of his...and bones, and body parts...and I suppose the guy that hasta scrape him off the pavement might be upset, but thats what he gets paid for.
As I pointed out in another post. By this logic a school administrator is not allowed to confiscate drugs from a student, because the student could then lock himself in the office and call the police saying the administrator stole his property. Now further, say there was a mistake and it was a bag of oregano, should the administrator be charged as a thief?
If it were me and I confiscated an ID that I believed was fake, and then the owner of said ID acted the way he did I would A. be pretty secure in my belief that it was indeed a fake ID because a confiscated fake ID means charges may be coming when it gets turned into the police (which is the correct action for confiscated fake IDs) and B. reaching for the panic button and any under the counter weapons to defend myself from loony tunes hostage taker until the police arrive. Had this individual said "Hey, its not fake, I want my ID back, oh I can't have it, ok well I will just call the cops and they can come sort it out" and then you wait patiently and not be a flaming asshole to the clerk.
Incidentally some googling shows that it varies from place to place but alcohol retailers are frequently allowed to confiscate fake IDs, however, they are not allowed to confiscate legitimate IDs. Further the punishment for owning, using, buying, or selling a fake ID is considerbly higher than mistakingly confiscating a legitimate ID, so you can guess who the cops will be sympathetic to in the case of confusion. So when there is a question to authenticity...once again...call the authorities and have them decide.
I have been to ONE bar with a door man, no other bar had one. As I also said before if there was not precedent of some sort for them not getting in trouble for confiscating said IDs I doubt that they would do it. As far as your silly MP3 analogy your logic is flawed and your are just trying to make a stupid emotional argument. Let me fix your analogy. If I can't show where my MP3s are from legitimate CDs then you could steal the MP3s, not the computer, OR we could say that you could steal my wallet for carrying my fake ID, not even remotely the same as when I said they shouldn't be in trouble for confiscating a fake ID. Do you think school administrators should be hit with drug charges if they confiscate drugs from a student? They aren't the police, and they are taking an item that is illegal to own and illegal to use and illegal to sell and illegal to buy (much like a fake ID). Now I don't think many people would disagree that school administrators are allowed to do this even though they don't really have the authority, but now say there was a mistake and someone confiscated a bag of oregano instead of a bag of pot, now should that student lock himself in the office with the administrator and demand his oregano back.
I agree with your sentiment, but the whole do good thing is a little broadly painted itself. It depends on where in the world you are at, when you get to dealing with that crowd of "I'm saved because I accept Jesus, and you can choose to be saved" crowd...wow. Some of the most worthless excuses for humans I have run into. Irritating, pushy, arrogant, completely blind to anything Jesus actually taught (I am reasonably convinced he was a real man, just not so convinced of the whole Son of God business). These clowns frequently behave as if they can do no wrong, that act based faith is silly and pointless, and that there is no need to do good, only to convert or crush everyone who is not on board with their ideology.
That being said, I think the religion end of it is irrelevant and more often than not is used as a tool to justify inflicting great crimes "in the name of God" on various other differing groups. Christians are by no means the only guilty party, but given that they come in such high numbers you just see it a little more often...well unless of coarse you are in the US then its only islamic folks that do it. The key here is that quite a few people DID catch on to the whole "love thy neighbor is the most important commandment" stuff that Jesus taught and they DO get together and they DO help out. These people I believe would do this without some God figure watching over them, they took to the teachings of a good and honest man and followed them. They are to be commended for their compassion, and behavior rather than their beliefs. I only disagree with the MOST part because that has not been my experience at all, some are insane lunatics, some are genuinely good people working for the benefit of mankind, MOST sit around tithe their 10% discuss the latest gossip and while they may believe in being good, generally pay lipservice and frequently do little in terms of getting their own hands dirty doing good.
My point is these people have a great deal or reasons to be skeptical of IDs and as far as I am aware frequently do have the authority to confiscate fake IDs. This is all easily remedied by CALMLY calling the police and asking them to come sort it out, NOT being a raving lunatic and locking yourself in since that pretty much the worst way to handle it. That demanding punishment for the girl who took your suspicious ID and had to put up with you locking yourself in with her (and while I may be jumping to conlcusions, being threatening, because locking the door and holding her hostage for an ID like that is a bit threatening) is a little dumb when he is lucky nobody shot his ass since acting like that in a convenience store or liquor store or bar will frequently get you injured and/or jail time because the people who work there tend to be twitchy from getting robbed by people doing insane shit like that. Further, in reference to the original story that the lock-in guy was commenting on, they were illegal IDs, and bitching that someone stole your illegal ID is like the guy that called the cops because someone stole his drugs.
That was exactly my point! Being an irrational bastard is not going to get you anywhere. While I don't know where the guy is from, locking yourself in a liquor store and being irrational is likely to get you shot by the person behind the counter who has probably been robbed on more than one occasion. Liquor stores frequently have call networks where they call eachother every hour or so to make sure each store is still safe. My point is they have a lot of reason to confiscate and be skeptical, even more when you go crazy and lock yourself in with them. His point was that she should have been punished for taking his ID and putting up with him being insane and locking himself in in protest. If the ID WAS fake (as it is in the original story) ranting about someone stealing your illegal ID is like telling the cops that someone stole your drug stash. Its just stupid.
1. Police are free to confiscate illegal items so there is no "but its mine". I encourage you to tell the cops they can't take your drugs because they are yours
2. You apparently don't understand what happens to booze slinging places if they DO sell to underage kids fake ID or not. Typically they get shut down, completely. Well at least they lose their license to sling booze and get hit with a hefty fine, and when a bar doesn't sling booze, the bar doesn't exactly do business, but they still have to pay the rent, electric, etc...so in effect their business gets completely shut down. So because some dumb shit kid wandered in and you didn't catch the Fake ID you lose your entire business and all your employees lose their jobs?
3. Just in case you aren't aware. While it may vary from state to state, your drivers license or other such IDs rarely belong to you, they frequently belong to the state. Any sane court would toss out any claims of theft of a false ID in a heartbeat and not waste a dime of taxpayer money pursuing such nonsnese, and would then proceed to punish the fool with the fake ID.
4. I bet you one of those people that thought it was smart when the drug dealer called the cops because someone stole his drugs too huh?
5. Kudos on your rational behavior locking yourself in while demanding your ID back. I am certain that there was very little attempt to explain or work this out rationally. As you said you were furious and eventually locked yourself in. Next time try to be a little more sane and rational, and if needed call the cops to handle the dispute, but acting a fool and locking yourself in is just childish.
AAAH I get it. In the picture she is a "drinking pirate" so she they assumed she was incapable of using correct english! I side with the university now.
You are going straight to hell for the mental imagery associated with that... But I always did get a laugh about how that whole clippy thing was headed up by the future bride of billy.
I really hope you don't use this password anywhere else. In fact I am curious to see how many people just tried to log into your slashdot account using that password. Maybe even hitting the MapleStory site just for a few random attempts as well:)
Talk to me about the benefits of straight marriage when no more kids are abused by straight couples, when straight marriages aren't all the hollywood rage, and divorce, and remarriage, and divorce again, and reremarriage. I agree that a great deal of it is agenda driven, but that comes from both sides. If noone batted an eyelash at the people getting married as gays, the whole thing would be nonissue. But don't even try this all of the benefits and none of the responsibilities crap about how great it is for society. For the record I know FAAAAAR more straight couples that got married simply for the associated benefits and don't even live together than gay couples that have done anything remotely similar.
Having two loving parents is more important than having a male and female parent. We have a problem with kids needing to be adopted anyways. And you will never convince me a kid with 2 moms or 2 dads is any worse off than a dad that ran off, a mom that is a drunk, or a dad that beats them, or a mom that sleeps around. That is such a flakey and bullshit argument that comes up every time. Penis n Pussy don't teach anything, parents teach, and it is fairly irrelevant so long as they have caring parents.
No no no, that is fair discrimination because they are gay. Don't you understand, Iran is bad when they impose radical Islam rules, but its all okay and civil when our government imposes hardliner "good christian values". The greatest irony is the 2 major biblical sections that get paraded about as anti gay have about 0 to do with gay. Sodom and Gomorrah (assuming you allow them to maintain that everything in the bible is historically accurate) has more to do with the culture of hospitality, and how hospitality to strangers was even more important than your own family, and was not unique to that part of the world, MANY cultures practiced that. The next best one is the "Jesus says marriage = man + woman" crap, which if you read about 5 lines ahead of that he was talking about DIVORCE! The pharisees came to challenge him because Moses said they could get divorces, and Jesus says what was joined by God man shall not separate.
So married people without kids should not have any of the legal benefits associated either then is what you are saying. Taxed as single, kept out of hospital emergency rooms, etc etc etc. The homophobic community tries to cast the whole argument into this legal rights nonsense to gain support and justify it. Personally I think marriage shouldn't even be an issue of the government in any way shape or form, it is a church issue and by separation of church and state it should not be a government issue. The government should only issue "civil unions" to people who apply gay straight or otherwise so long as they are living together as an economic unit. If two college roommates spend 4 years living together in the same house, economically they are basically married, they share the same bills, property, etc. Let them pay taxes and have the legal muscle to handle things like changes to bills, statuses, whatever in the event the other is away or incapacitated like any other married folk.
Your entire chain of reasoning is even more ignorant that the homophobia itself. Associating homophobia with the poor/lower income groups, saying that the largest group in the military is poor/lower income, and then trying to relate the thing to morale is unbelievably ignorant and none of it is very true. The majority of the military is not from the poor/lower income for one, secondly most of the military doesn't give a rats ass about it. The drive for banning homosexuals comes almost exclusively from the religious right end of upper leadership (government and military) and its a holier than thou morality issue and has nothing to do with unit cohesion and morale. Your reasoning is the same retarded reasoning that kept blacks and women out of the military for ages too, and it was proven unbelievably false and ignorant both times.
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Thank you! It blows my mind that one screwup soldier makes everyone in the military a demon is a perfectly accepted reasoning. But one Arab strapping a bomb to his chest does not justify demonizing all of them. Its insane that nobody seems to want to admit individual responsibilities for actions when talking about 'the enemy' but is quick to accept it when defending their side.
There are idiot asshole soldiers just like there are idiot asshole muslims, that doesn't speak for the whole group or even the majority! But a bunch of asshats have decided it does and now we have two large groups in charge with one screaming all arabs are evil bomb em all, and another screaming all soldiers are evil the muslims should kill them all! In the meantime soldiers are being sent to die by their 'supporters' as well as their detractors, and precious few Americans seem concerned about the father, son, brother, neighbor that gets killed or maimed in Iraq in this mess, only that he is a murderer and rapist because he happens to work with a few idiot assholes that are pathetic excuses for humans.
How many good soldiers doing good things does it take to make up for the few morons screwing things up? The bad things carry a lot more weight because that is how the news works (again go look at local news and see the same thing that has nothing to do with this whole Iraq business, local news would make a nice peaceful community look like you are going to get shot for walking to your mailbox, its called ratings), it doesn't help that its popular to hate America these days because our leaders have pretty much screwed the pooch with our credibility on ANYTHING, but again that has precious little to do with the troops on the ground, they are just a convenient scapegoat because they are the ones stuck in the actual shit hole.
People seem to forget the vast majority of the killing over there is people driving car bombs into populated areas. So everyone loves to trot out the death tolls without actually attributing the number of deaths to the correct groups. I agree its a god damned mess over there, that our leadership sent the military over there on some REALLY sketchy reasoning, then back peddle and find new reasoning, and then back peddle and find new reasoning. Its disgusting. But I am so freaking sick of hearing people demonize the military for this crap. No one wants to talk about how many more people have electricity now, or water, or food, or are going to school, or are getting news from the outside world that isn't state sponsored crap. I think the worthless bastards that get convicted of the rape and torture and whatnot should just be stripped of their uniforms and dropped off in downtown Baghdad and let the locals handle them. It is disgusting that they do this, but its even more infuriating that the media and the populace insist that we are all murdering torturers because of the few idiot assholes when the vast majority aren't. It also pisses me off that the media portrays Iraqi's as backwards or unintelligent just being victimized by Americans. The ones I spoke with used better English than half the people in the US, they are incredibly educated, and their lives were crushed by Saddam's horrible rule, he took an incredibly prosperous country and flushed it.
YOU are missing something here. Picture those same couple hundred thousand, building schools, fixing power plants, guarding neighborhoods, and then ONE shoots your wife. Your argument here is the same as it is for racism. One black guy shoots your wife, so all black guys can't be trusted! No, just that one idiot asshole that did it, the rest of them are pretty much good people.
Statistical sampling is great when you are dealing with things that it applies to well. Coin tosses for example...a coin doesn't have a good day, a bad day, or really much of a choice. A coin doesn't have its words taken out of context. And most importantly coins don't generally have emotional lunatics on either side chanting with a fervor about how the coin should always be heads or always be tails. I'm saying they talked to people, and that most of those people were probably coming out of combat zones, where they have had a long string of bad days.
.09% sampling is valid enough for you to make these broad sweeping claims? Oh and by the way, be sure to use coins that can change their results after being flipped. Now also that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the Air Force, Navy, or Marines.
You are terribly confused about what I said. I said you think you are some expert on the state of the troops and can make all of these wonderful decision calls on it and how all troops are screwed up. I'm freaking glad the Pentagon is the one doing the study, because it means they have a little more insight into what the answers mean, and what was asked, and specifically how it was asked. You are just being an armchair quarterback reading media snippets and making broad judgement calls on how a very small statistical sampling of people with ever shifting opinions make. There are approximately 1.1 million Army members counting active and reserve, they talked to a little over 1000 as cited by your link. Now since you are so hot shit to explain to me how I deny statistical sampling, would you care to explain in what field that approximately
"of the 1,320 soldiers and 447 Marines covered in the survey" So because 179 marines said they wouldn't report it that means that 40% of ALL marines wouldn't report it? I'm so terribly happy that you are so good at buzz and alarmism and so horrible at math, it wouldn't be nearly as much fun to laugh at this. I would be willing to put large ammounts of money that every single last one of them that answered they wouldn't report has spent at least a significant ammount of time in actual real bullet flying people dying combat. Because the kind of stress that puts on a young guy trying to survive, making it through the realization that this is all real, and that his friends are dying around him...well they start to get a little twitchy and suspicious since the enemy is terribly good at pretending to be innocent noncombatants. So not that its a good thing by any means, or that it should be condoned, or that it should not be looked into, but this overblown media hype about what it really means is just disgusting. I don't think it means they go hunting down civilians to hurt, it most likely means that they wouldn't report someone misidentifying a target and hitting someone who probably wasn't in the fight.
I don't like what is going on over there right now, but idiots like you are no better than the assholes who send Americans over there in the first place. A bunch of civilians living a relatively cushy lifestyle who have never had to live in a combat zone suddenly are experts on combat and able to pass judgment and make 'expert' decisions about it. The only difference is the people who send the Americans over there get paid for it, but you all do it.
Those aren't facts those are misguided opinions with no real evidence. 1. I am not and have not ever been very poor, nor were most of the people I served with. That only the poor bullshit is a line that frequently gets trotted out because the ultraprivlidged manage to dodge the bullet on service, but that does NOT mean that the people who are serving are only the poor and I resent your bigoted classification.
2. Unless you served both in Vietnam and in Iraq you are hardly qualified to say this, and I sincerely doubt you did either. Once again I have served with a great many outstanding leaders that have been put in a horribly unfortunate position of fighting this conflict (its not a war, lets get that straight). Rummy and the Shrub have dictated insane policies and have cut our service to the bone while attempting to fight on two fronts. Now just in case you missed your history lessons, the military leaders in vietnam werent the problem, it was congress and crew dictating how to fight the war with stupid policy and target restrictions.
3. Every group on the planet has its scum, and you insist on pointing at the few that get trotted out in the media and saying that everyone is a model of that person in the military, further you continue with this only the poor bullshit line. Oh and very clever AbuGrave did you think of that yourself or is that your groupthink helping you there? I am glad you can make such promises as to how it all went down, maybe you should just go ahead and testify that you know all the answers and you can clear this whole mess right up so easily. I am so fucking sick of assholes like you trotting out this bullshit that because I am proud of the military and I am proud of my service that I am proud of what the CIVILIANS ordered us to do. Remember that ugly little truth? That the constitution demands a military controlled by the public? I seriously can't believe that you are defending Saddam saying he kept the killing to a minimum...so you support Rummy before the war but not after the war? Good lord...so its ok for us to support Saddam and his murderous regime and ethnic cleansing, but its not ok for us to do anything about it. (Now I think our pretense for going there in the first place is about as strong as a wet tissue, but its a little late to argue about why we shouldn't be there because we are there now and we need to find a way to make things right and not continue to play assinine politics with soldiers lives). I defended a pathetic attack on the character of all military members based on the actions of a few low integrity pieces of shit and suddenly I am a flag waving boot stomping murderous imperialistic monster? I have served, I know how it works, and I know that the vast majority of people I worked with were of the highest caliber, but I also know that there were more than a few that were worthless pricks, and contrary to popular belief MOST of the worthless pricks don't make it all that far.
I think linux users are probably more likely to pay for a game than windows users as long as we go down that road. I mean really the linux user is 100% legal in his usage of free software and is likely to just go buy the game because he doesn't run in the warez scene to get his software. The windows user who is probably running a pirate version is probably out downloading illegal software as we speak. Ultimately any given linux user is more likely to be using 100% legal software. And that is my stereotypical rant for the day.
You make me sick. The number of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines over there doing good things for the locals VASTLY outnumbers your disgusting stereotypes. Yes that shit happened and more than a few service members we upset by it too, because ignorant asshats like you start running around proclaiming that everyone is doing it. How much charity have you done for the people over there? I have known airmen that have setup donation programs for the kids out there for blankets, food, clothing. These men and women giving up their precious off duty time (which you have terribly little of out there) and their own money to reach out to the local community and help. I bet you don't know anything about the parts of northern Iraq where the locals have announced that for every American killed or kidnapped in their community they will hunt down and kill 100 of these little militia members running around causing problems.
I'm sorry for the 3 people you know that came back. I know a few that didn't come back, and I know hundreds who have been over there for months to years. I suppose the fact that I was there makes me a baby killing, civilian raping, prisoner torturing asshole too huh? Well I'm certainly glad that the people like you are far away from the field and with no weapons, the 15-20 iraqi locals riding on a flatbed doing random work on the base (trash, sandbags, etc) all started waving and smiling at our group on my first day there. I would much rather be surrounded by the people that see that the military is doing its best to try and help (far from the politicians goals).
Go watch your local news and see how many 'good deeds' type stuff gets reported, and then see how many murderous rampages and serial killings get reported, and how much coverage each gets. Then ask "gee, I wonder what more people watch and where they get their ratings". Then think for just one moment "I wonder if the news channels are doing the same thing with the war that they do with our local news, showing the most disturbing and horrific things for ratings and glossing over the mundane and good because noone pays attention to it".
Texting while driving has no benefit worth the risk. There is no harmless cola version of texting while driving. It's dangerous and stupid and quite frankly should already be considered inattentive driving (a ticketable offense) if not outright reckless driving. I think its dumb that they are making a law for this as it should already be covered by existing laws. Somewhat like congress passes a bill to outlaw illegal wiretaps. The idea that there is some lost freedom by not being allowed to text while driving is the same idea that I would lose some freedom by not being allowed to get drunk while driving. If you are driving that is what you should be doing, you are operating a heavy machine at high speeds. People take driving for granted and get complacent. That is risky and deadly. You don't like it, don't drive. People seem to think they have some inherent right to drive, they don't. The government built the roads, the government maintains the roads, the government licenses people to use the roads, the government gets to set the rules for using their roads...this is actually one of those areas that the government SHOULD be responsible for maintaining and regulating. You have two legs and can walk around texting all day long if you like, if you walk into a pole because you weren't paying attention its not likely to hurt anyone else. People confuse freedom with the right to do anything you damn well please regardless of the risk to anyone around you.
Bottom line is that texting while driving is not 'non-harmful activities'. Given the number of deadly accidents I have seen due to drivers doing anything from eating lunch, putting on makeup, playing with cellphones, or messing with their new 10,000 button super stereo...I'm not inclined to be upset by this law at all. Its stupid, its risky, and everytime I see someone doing it I pray they wrap themselves around a telephone pole or fly off the road before they hit someone else who wasn't engaging in that kind of risk. Explain the benefit of texting while driving to johnny and sally while the paramedics peel their parents off the dashboard because Skippy in oncoming traffic was sending 'lol u r hot! wont 2 get 2gether 2nite?' to someone he met on myspace.
I'm an American.
I'm happy you know where Estonia is, do you know where your local government is? (city, county, state?)
I'm ashamed at our poor math and reasoning skills as evident here. "Significant percentage" unfortunately was meant to be "Insignificant percentage" because if all you do is pay lip service to the anti-shrub and don't DO anything you might as well be supporting him. He has proven quite clearly that he doesn't listen to much of anything. The neo-con's don't thing war is a solution, they think fear is a solution, they want you to FEAR everything so they can do anything they want to "keep you safe" be it war, wiretaps, etc.
You sound like your upset and I understand your resentment of the smug stereotyping of Americans. Unfortunately these days saying Americans are dumb is almost on par with Africans are black. I mean sure there are a handful of exceptions, but its not really stereotyping when its overwhelmingly true.
I keep hoping and waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel. When its no longer cool to be stupid. When we will have a progressive government that isn't a bunch of asshats writing for lobbyists. In the mean time we are looking like having yet another neo-con president after this one. Not that I have specific dislike for Obama, I absolutely loathe Hillary, but the Dems are given the opportunity of "The election you cannot lose!" after 8 years of Bush with an approval rating in the 20-30% range. What do they do...they run a black candidate (again, I don't care, but watch America carefully, they say ooh its no big deal but as soon as it looks like 'that nigger is gunna win' things will change) and they run a worthless cutthroat insane sellout bitch of a woman candidate who is likely to be the one who destroys the Obama campaign for the R camp. Now on the R side we have Ghouliani and the Newt. Remember folks the Dems were the runs that ran Kerry vs Bush on the "I'm not Bush" campaign AND LOST. A turnip could have beaten Bush and they ran Kerry in another "The election we have to try to lose".
I will never accept laws that crush my freedom to drink a liter of rum and drive a truck through your front door either! Stick it to the man. Its like the handsfree cellphone nonsense....oooh look I'm handsfree so I'm safe now BZZZZT wrong answer they have shown repeatedly that talking on the cellphone is the dangerous and distracting part, not just holding it. They have also shown that talking to people in the car with you is significantly less distracting and that other passengers are able to take visual cues of the driving condition and take pauses accordingly. Now I don't suppose I can argue the kid in the back seat, so maybe we should just outlaw having kids, would sure as hell fix a bunch of our other problems.
Your ability to use the technology isnt being nanny-stated away, thats like saying your ability to drink and drive is being nanny-stated away. By engaging in that activity you become a hazard to yourself and to others (to others being the key part that stops the nanny-state claim). Now I agree that seatbelt laws are nanny-state nonsense, I believe we should get rid of seatbelt laws immediately, same with helmet laws. If numbnuts wants to be stupid and risk himself not wearing a helmet or seatbelt or whatever other safety device...so be it...no skin of my back...most likely skin of his...and bones, and body parts...and I suppose the guy that hasta scrape him off the pavement might be upset, but thats what he gets paid for.
As I pointed out in another post. By this logic a school administrator is not allowed to confiscate drugs from a student, because the student could then lock himself in the office and call the police saying the administrator stole his property. Now further, say there was a mistake and it was a bag of oregano, should the administrator be charged as a thief?
If it were me and I confiscated an ID that I believed was fake, and then the owner of said ID acted the way he did I would A. be pretty secure in my belief that it was indeed a fake ID because a confiscated fake ID means charges may be coming when it gets turned into the police (which is the correct action for confiscated fake IDs) and B. reaching for the panic button and any under the counter weapons to defend myself from loony tunes hostage taker until the police arrive. Had this individual said "Hey, its not fake, I want my ID back, oh I can't have it, ok well I will just call the cops and they can come sort it out" and then you wait patiently and not be a flaming asshole to the clerk.
Incidentally some googling shows that it varies from place to place but alcohol retailers are frequently allowed to confiscate fake IDs, however, they are not allowed to confiscate legitimate IDs. Further the punishment for owning, using, buying, or selling a fake ID is considerbly higher than mistakingly confiscating a legitimate ID, so you can guess who the cops will be sympathetic to in the case of confusion. So when there is a question to authenticity...once again...call the authorities and have them decide.
I have been to ONE bar with a door man, no other bar had one. As I also said before if there was not precedent of some sort for them not getting in trouble for confiscating said IDs I doubt that they would do it. As far as your silly MP3 analogy your logic is flawed and your are just trying to make a stupid emotional argument. Let me fix your analogy. If I can't show where my MP3s are from legitimate CDs then you could steal the MP3s, not the computer, OR we could say that you could steal my wallet for carrying my fake ID, not even remotely the same as when I said they shouldn't be in trouble for confiscating a fake ID. Do you think school administrators should be hit with drug charges if they confiscate drugs from a student? They aren't the police, and they are taking an item that is illegal to own and illegal to use and illegal to sell and illegal to buy (much like a fake ID). Now I don't think many people would disagree that school administrators are allowed to do this even though they don't really have the authority, but now say there was a mistake and someone confiscated a bag of oregano instead of a bag of pot, now should that student lock himself in the office with the administrator and demand his oregano back.
I agree with your sentiment, but the whole do good thing is a little broadly painted itself. It depends on where in the world you are at, when you get to dealing with that crowd of "I'm saved because I accept Jesus, and you can choose to be saved" crowd...wow. Some of the most worthless excuses for humans I have run into. Irritating, pushy, arrogant, completely blind to anything Jesus actually taught (I am reasonably convinced he was a real man, just not so convinced of the whole Son of God business). These clowns frequently behave as if they can do no wrong, that act based faith is silly and pointless, and that there is no need to do good, only to convert or crush everyone who is not on board with their ideology.
That being said, I think the religion end of it is irrelevant and more often than not is used as a tool to justify inflicting great crimes "in the name of God" on various other differing groups. Christians are by no means the only guilty party, but given that they come in such high numbers you just see it a little more often...well unless of coarse you are in the US then its only islamic folks that do it. The key here is that quite a few people DID catch on to the whole "love thy neighbor is the most important commandment" stuff that Jesus taught and they DO get together and they DO help out. These people I believe would do this without some God figure watching over them, they took to the teachings of a good and honest man and followed them. They are to be commended for their compassion, and behavior rather than their beliefs. I only disagree with the MOST part because that has not been my experience at all, some are insane lunatics, some are genuinely good people working for the benefit of mankind, MOST sit around tithe their 10% discuss the latest gossip and while they may believe in being good, generally pay lipservice and frequently do little in terms of getting their own hands dirty doing good.
My point is these people have a great deal or reasons to be skeptical of IDs and as far as I am aware frequently do have the authority to confiscate fake IDs. This is all easily remedied by CALMLY calling the police and asking them to come sort it out, NOT being a raving lunatic and locking yourself in since that pretty much the worst way to handle it. That demanding punishment for the girl who took your suspicious ID and had to put up with you locking yourself in with her (and while I may be jumping to conlcusions, being threatening, because locking the door and holding her hostage for an ID like that is a bit threatening) is a little dumb when he is lucky nobody shot his ass since acting like that in a convenience store or liquor store or bar will frequently get you injured and/or jail time because the people who work there tend to be twitchy from getting robbed by people doing insane shit like that. Further, in reference to the original story that the lock-in guy was commenting on, they were illegal IDs, and bitching that someone stole your illegal ID is like the guy that called the cops because someone stole his drugs.
That was exactly my point! Being an irrational bastard is not going to get you anywhere. While I don't know where the guy is from, locking yourself in a liquor store and being irrational is likely to get you shot by the person behind the counter who has probably been robbed on more than one occasion. Liquor stores frequently have call networks where they call eachother every hour or so to make sure each store is still safe. My point is they have a lot of reason to confiscate and be skeptical, even more when you go crazy and lock yourself in with them. His point was that she should have been punished for taking his ID and putting up with him being insane and locking himself in in protest. If the ID WAS fake (as it is in the original story) ranting about someone stealing your illegal ID is like telling the cops that someone stole your drug stash. Its just stupid.
1. Police are free to confiscate illegal items so there is no "but its mine". I encourage you to tell the cops they can't take your drugs because they are yours
2. You apparently don't understand what happens to booze slinging places if they DO sell to underage kids fake ID or not. Typically they get shut down, completely. Well at least they lose their license to sling booze and get hit with a hefty fine, and when a bar doesn't sling booze, the bar doesn't exactly do business, but they still have to pay the rent, electric, etc...so in effect their business gets completely shut down. So because some dumb shit kid wandered in and you didn't catch the Fake ID you lose your entire business and all your employees lose their jobs?
3. Just in case you aren't aware. While it may vary from state to state, your drivers license or other such IDs rarely belong to you, they frequently belong to the state. Any sane court would toss out any claims of theft of a false ID in a heartbeat and not waste a dime of taxpayer money pursuing such nonsnese, and would then proceed to punish the fool with the fake ID.
4. I bet you one of those people that thought it was smart when the drug dealer called the cops because someone stole his drugs too huh?
5. Kudos on your rational behavior locking yourself in while demanding your ID back. I am certain that there was very little attempt to explain or work this out rationally. As you said you were furious and eventually locked yourself in. Next time try to be a little more sane and rational, and if needed call the cops to handle the dispute, but acting a fool and locking yourself in is just childish.
AAAH I get it. In the picture she is a "drinking pirate" so she they assumed she was incapable of using correct english! I side with the university now.
You are going straight to hell for the mental imagery associated with that... But I always did get a laugh about how that whole clippy thing was headed up by the future bride of billy.
I hope someone kills you for that joke. Seriously...
I really hope you don't use this password anywhere else. In fact I am curious to see how many people just tried to log into your slashdot account using that password. Maybe even hitting the MapleStory site just for a few random attempts as well :)
I need a ruling here. Is this a violation of Godwin's Law? I mean its close...
Talk to me about the benefits of straight marriage when no more kids are abused by straight couples, when straight marriages aren't all the hollywood rage, and divorce, and remarriage, and divorce again, and reremarriage. I agree that a great deal of it is agenda driven, but that comes from both sides. If noone batted an eyelash at the people getting married as gays, the whole thing would be nonissue. But don't even try this all of the benefits and none of the responsibilities crap about how great it is for society. For the record I know FAAAAAR more straight couples that got married simply for the associated benefits and don't even live together than gay couples that have done anything remotely similar.
Having two loving parents is more important than having a male and female parent. We have a problem with kids needing to be adopted anyways. And you will never convince me a kid with 2 moms or 2 dads is any worse off than a dad that ran off, a mom that is a drunk, or a dad that beats them, or a mom that sleeps around. That is such a flakey and bullshit argument that comes up every time. Penis n Pussy don't teach anything, parents teach, and it is fairly irrelevant so long as they have caring parents.
No no no, that is fair discrimination because they are gay. Don't you understand, Iran is bad when they impose radical Islam rules, but its all okay and civil when our government imposes hardliner "good christian values". The greatest irony is the 2 major biblical sections that get paraded about as anti gay have about 0 to do with gay. Sodom and Gomorrah (assuming you allow them to maintain that everything in the bible is historically accurate) has more to do with the culture of hospitality, and how hospitality to strangers was even more important than your own family, and was not unique to that part of the world, MANY cultures practiced that. The next best one is the "Jesus says marriage = man + woman" crap, which if you read about 5 lines ahead of that he was talking about DIVORCE! The pharisees came to challenge him because Moses said they could get divorces, and Jesus says what was joined by God man shall not separate.
So married people without kids should not have any of the legal benefits associated either then is what you are saying. Taxed as single, kept out of hospital emergency rooms, etc etc etc. The homophobic community tries to cast the whole argument into this legal rights nonsense to gain support and justify it. Personally I think marriage shouldn't even be an issue of the government in any way shape or form, it is a church issue and by separation of church and state it should not be a government issue. The government should only issue "civil unions" to people who apply gay straight or otherwise so long as they are living together as an economic unit. If two college roommates spend 4 years living together in the same house, economically they are basically married, they share the same bills, property, etc. Let them pay taxes and have the legal muscle to handle things like changes to bills, statuses, whatever in the event the other is away or incapacitated like any other married folk.
Your entire chain of reasoning is even more ignorant that the homophobia itself. Associating homophobia with the poor/lower income groups, saying that the largest group in the military is poor/lower income, and then trying to relate the thing to morale is unbelievably ignorant and none of it is very true. The majority of the military is not from the poor/lower income for one, secondly most of the military doesn't give a rats ass about it. The drive for banning homosexuals comes almost exclusively from the religious right end of upper leadership (government and military) and its a holier than thou morality issue and has nothing to do with unit cohesion and morale. Your reasoning is the same retarded reasoning that kept blacks and women out of the military for ages too, and it was proven unbelievably false and ignorant both times.