You have some interesting arguments, some of which bear responding to. However, there are a disturbing number of anti-semitic claims among them. I'll leave "Feeding the troll" to another. That will give you time to sew on a few more Swastika (tm) patches and come up with more arguments about the despicable Je... ahem, "Israeli".
If this is the first time you have heard about the attacks on the peacekeepers in the no-fly zones, I wonder if you can even place Iraq on a map. Or if you know the difference between Iran and Iraq. At least you know something about the subject of "sub-humans", whatever these are.
'The goverment of China does things that I do not agree with.'
How about their claiming the worst mass murderer in human history as their beloved founder? His icon is still shown all over the place, and his "friendly" ideas still drive the government. Some things are beyond "not being nice".
'The goverment of China does things that I do not agree with. The government of the US does things that I do not agree with.'
I am guessing that you are in the United States. In China you'd be sent to a slave labor camp for half of that statement.
'The weapon isn't in the artifact, but in the use. If I suffocate you with a Care Bear, I suspect the prosecution at my murder trial would hold out the bear (Friend Bear, in this case) as a weapon'
I've heard of the right to bear arms. And the right to arm bears. Now, this, the right to bear bears, is something that is quite new to me.
"The WMD argument only persists on the administration side because they don't want to admit to deceit or incompetence."
Why admit something that is not true? They told the truth about Iraq. They did not want to "sell" anything. They certainly did not want war: they gave Saddam Hussein plenty of time to avert war by completely complying with inspections. The presence of WMD's in Iraq prior to the retaliation by the allies remains nothing but a historic fact.
'Nobody in their right mind thinks that Hussein was a good thing for Iraq'
Except perhaps for you and Rei, as you twist history and make up things in order to justify Saddam's reign. And how about Ramsey Clarke and ANSWER? They have gone on record saying what a paradise Saddam's Iraq was. As long as it makes Bush look bad, who cares what happenes along the way.
The "peace" that was the status-quo in Iraq so beloved of the "anti-war movement" was one where Saddam Hussein persisted in funding and promoting terrorism, where he attacked foreign countries, and where he ordered the killing of tens of thousands of civilians per year. This is the "peace" desired by those who argued so hard in favor of Saddam.
Looking at it, it would appear that McBride could make the claim that the letter itself contains purloined UNIX source code (as does "Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger... now you know why he was a recluse!). You're delivering the weapon of your own destruction into his hands, man.
The only reason is that they do not have enough shovels and don't have permission to search in Syria. The fact was that these WMD's existed. They were used, and this is documented. There is no documentantion of the destruction (or use) of the remaining stockpiles which had been previously inventoried.
'Oh, this is just rich. The No-Fly Zones were not UN-accepted'
Inspection/patrols to ensure and monitor compliance were part of the cease-fire agreement after the first Gulf War. Iraq had no right to ignore it based on silly "spy!" claims. Attacks on these peacekeepers were entirely illegal and unprovoked aggression. To stop these attacks alone, the allies had the right to whomp Saddam's terrorist infrascture as hard as possible.
'Then, before war began, we began bombing essentially at will to try and goad Iraq into attacking the US.'
They (Saddam's terrorists) already had attacked, and were attacking still. Your claim makes no sense. The "attacks" you mention were retaliation for attacks against Americans which had already occured.
'The IAEA and UNMOVIC heads themselves described good cooperation from the Iraqi government. Blix... '
Blix's own reports detailed large infractions. Blix said that Iraq's cooperation was improving, but was not there yet. This compliance was 10 years overdue, and was still not there yet. it is a blatant lie to claim "good cooperation" when the summaries still showed that cooperation was not occuring.
'Hussein Kamel (...informed the teams that Iraq *had* destroyed its chemical and biological agents in order to try and get the embargo '
How many lies must be told to defend Saddam? There is nothing true about this. Iraq refused to document such destruction of the weapons. They were still blocking inspections up until the US large-scale retaliation. If they were eager to end the embargo, they would have welcomed inspections.
'Most of the Iraqi complaints were of the US spying to gather information for war, which turned out to be true.'
Well, duh! Realize that there is no difference between inspection and spying. Under the cease fire agreements at the end of the first Gulf War, Saddam had no right to complain. There would have been no second "war". if he had bothered to comply.
'The closest thing Iraq did to active promotion of terrorism was giving money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers to compensate for Israel's policy of destroying the families' homes'
While you attempt to sugar-coat it, you do mention Saddam's terrorist actions to try to exterminate the Jews. In keeping with "tell any lie in order to prop up Saddam and make Bush look bad", you are forgetting Saddam hosting and harboring numerous terrorists and terrorist organizations.
This is quite typical. None of the arguments used in support of Saddam Hussein and his aggression have any validity.
'True. In fact, few people realize that we owe a great deal of modern civilization to the knowledge the Muslims preserved. Kind of makes you wonder what's changed since then that's turned major religion into a force for violence and opposition to progress'
Perhaps little has changed except that the rest of society has progressed. Enlightened as it was back then, the Muslim empire was savage and brutal by today's standards. Much is made of how well they treated the Jews, but also realize that they made Jews pay a special tax just for being Jewish. They also desecrated and destroyed the vast majority of synagogues in areas they conquered. The area known as Saudi Arabia today once had a large Jewish population. Muhammad ordered these Jews exterminated, and to this day his edict of "no Jews allowed" keeps the peninsula pretty much free of Jews.
Much of the world looked at horror at happened during the Sudan during the 1990s, as the Muslim north raped and pillaged the Christian south. This is what the Muslim empire led by Muhammad typically did in order to expand. it looks pretty bad now, but was the typical "modus operandi" back then.
'So that means the US should simply break old contracts if they don't like them any more?'
Certainly not. However, how is this relevant? The US withdrawal from the ABM treaty was "by the book" and did not break any contract. It used the proper method of withdrawal, with the cooperation of the Russian government, no less.
'Seems Dubya's still having a hard time finding those WMDs '
It took months to find Saddam Hussein, and his bunker needed airholes. The WMD's, which clearly did exist (we even have records he used them) don't need airholes, and are easier to hide harder to find.
' we'll have proof that the war had some justification.'
We've had the proof that justifies retaliation for years now: ranging from Saddam's refusal to cooperate with inspections (itself a major cease-fire violation) to his active promotion of terrorism to his many illegal attacks on peacekeepers.
'er... doesn't every side go into a war looking to stop it?'
Not very often. Saddam attacked Kuwait with no expectations, or claims of expectations, than Kuwait was threatening to wage war against Iraq. Hitler invaded Poland without a reason of "stopping a Polish war". Etc etc etc.
'They are not? So why did the US sign them in the first place?'
Because....prepare to be shocked....sometimes leaders do bad things.
'Oh, and did it ever occur to you that even things you might consider "entirely-defensive efforts"'
It does not matter if I "see" them as entirely defensive. It only matters if they really are entirely defensive. The ABM treaty Bush withdrew from allowed Moscow to have short-range missile defense, but prevented Washington from defending itself the same way. It is an outright fact that this particular part of it prevented Washington from doing something that was entirely defensive.
While the space weapons part certainly can be offensive, there was nothing offense-related in the part of the ABM treaty banning missile defense of cities. If anyone claimed that this was "offensive", they were lying.
There are many reasons we need space weapons. How else can we stop the mutant Soviet space dogs once they decide to come down from their decades of orbit? What of the Vermicious Knids who might one day find a way to enter atmospheres without incineration?
And then there is the Battlestar Galactica to consider. It's been up there since 1980, waiting to come down. I'm not worried about chrome Cylons who fall into piles of tin cans if you so much look at them. It's the Galactica soldiers riding their disco-CHiPS motorcycles and the kids with bad Adam Rich haircuts that are the real danger.
' I can argue quite easily: it would invite rampant unequality, causing the wellfare of the populace (as a whole) to fall.'
How so? Society does not fail because Joe has 2 cars and Jim has 20 cars.
' I don't think it has yet to be proven that, when economical 'liberty' is left unchecked and unbalanced, you do not get the most wellfare for the most people, but rather the a concentration of wellfare for the few. '
In practice, it has turned out that you do get the most "welfare" for the most people.
' Depending on what you consider a worthy goal for a society, you may or may not accept the latter as a welcome evolution. I do not, however.'
I am not interested in forcing society into a direction. I am interested in maximizing freedom.
"a noble thought, and one I can relate too, frankly, because I have libertarian principles also. alas, just like communism, raw capitalism is fine, nay, even great in theory, but sucks in reality."
The problem it has in reality are rather few, especially compared to socialism.
'We already had such capitalism in the 19th century, at least in europe'
We didn't. There was very strong regulation by rulers.
' and if history has shown us anything, it's that unbalanced (with social laws and provisions, thus) capitalism is NOT to the benefit of the populace at large.'
The historic record shows that the most people benefit the most when they are allowed to make their own economic decisions.
' A system where everyone decides what to do with his money, would quicly lead to devastating social inequalities'
This is not a problem, unless someone is unnecessarily and greedily obsessed with what is in another's wallet.
'In practise, what will happen is, that the few will reap the most benefits while the most don't'
This has happened a lot more in socialism than in capitalism. Things actually end up more equal in capitalism.
'The 'social divide' between the poor and the rich is a well known problem'
Here is a big clue: it is not a problem.
'and is considerably higher where people adher (more) to your vision of capitalism (such as in the US) then in EU countries.'
Yet, in the European countries that have been the most socialist, the stratification has been the strongest.
' I disagree with your assessement of companies: most companies are all to greedy, even if they use euphemisms for it to conceil it.'
Perhaps, but the greed of companies is something that goes no-where unless others agree to the demands of the company. The greed of government, in contrast, is backed up by the gun. You cannot escape it.
'How come there are two little cartoon pictures of Michael Jackson at the top of their website?:\'
Those aren't cartoons. They are actual photos of MJ. I take it that this is the first time you have seen the results of his latest "make me look as unreal as possible" plastic surgery.
A note to Jane Jetson and Betty Rubble: do not let Elroy and Bam-Bam respond to those Neverland invitations they just received.
'On the other hand, I reported to eBay a guy that was selling obviously copyright-infringing stuff.....eBay still declined to do ANYTHING to the scammer.'
' MacGibbon: We have zero tolerance for wrongdoing and are committed to making eBay as safe as possible for our members. We also work closely with law enforcement agencies to help them to bring offenders to justice. '
I was recently looking to purchase a VHS tape of a classic TV show off eBay. I know this one exists as a regular commercial release, and I wanted to buy the legit copy. I found a certain seller listing it, and was poised to bid until I looked at his feedback.
In the feedback, I found several negative feedback complaints that the seller shipped the buyer a crappy tape taped off of TV. The vague wording in the listing I was interested in (and lack of an image) implied that this, too, was just a copy off of TV. I asked him him if the tape was legit, but got no response.
After this, I would look for this episode, and always find the guy selling his pirated copies. His negative feedback which mentioned the copies being pirated grew. I reported him to eBay a few times. They did nothing. At one time, they said they had no policy against anyone taping commercial shows off TV and selling them.
''Q: Would you recommend Internet Explorer or other browsers such as Firefox and Opera for eBay members? MacGibbon: eBay does not endorse any particular browser.
Q: Is Linux really more secure than Windows? A:
MacGibbon: eBay does not endorse any particular platform. ''
Q: Should children eat pellets of rat poison, or should they eat a healthy balanced diet?
A: eBay does not give advice on nutrition.
Q: Should I vacation in the Sunni Triangle, or in Cancun?
A: eBay does not give vacation advice.
Slashdot Mirror
You have some interesting arguments, some of which bear responding to. However, there are a disturbing number of anti-semitic claims among them. I'll leave "Feeding the troll" to another. That will give you time to sew on a few more Swastika (tm) patches and come up with more arguments about the despicable Je... ahem, "Israeli".
If this is the first time you have heard about the attacks on the peacekeepers in the no-fly zones, I wonder if you can even place Iraq on a map. Or if you know the difference between Iran and Iraq. At least you know something about the subject of "sub-humans", whatever these are.
If tellin' the truth makes me a troll, so be it.
How about their claiming the worst mass murderer in human history as their beloved founder? His icon is still shown all over the place, and his "friendly" ideas still drive the government. Some things are beyond "not being nice".
'The goverment of China does things that I do not agree with. The government of the US does things that I do not agree with.'
I am guessing that you are in the United States. In China you'd be sent to a slave labor camp for half of that statement.
I've heard of the right to bear arms. And the right to arm bears. Now, this, the right to bear bears, is something that is quite new to me.
Why admit something that is not true? They told the truth about Iraq. They did not want to "sell" anything. They certainly did not want war: they gave Saddam Hussein plenty of time to avert war by completely complying with inspections. The presence of WMD's in Iraq prior to the retaliation by the allies remains nothing but a historic fact.
'Nobody in their right mind thinks that Hussein was a good thing for Iraq'
Except perhaps for you and Rei, as you twist history and make up things in order to justify Saddam's reign. And how about Ramsey Clarke and ANSWER? They have gone on record saying what a paradise Saddam's Iraq was. As long as it makes Bush look bad, who cares what happenes along the way.
The "peace" that was the status-quo in Iraq so beloved of the "anti-war movement" was one where Saddam Hussein persisted in funding and promoting terrorism, where he attacked foreign countries, and where he ordered the killing of tens of thousands of civilians per year. This is the "peace" desired by those who argued so hard in favor of Saddam.
Looking at it, it would appear that McBride could make the claim that the letter itself contains purloined UNIX source code (as does "Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger... now you know why he was a recluse!). You're delivering the weapon of your own destruction into his hands, man.
The only reason is that they do not have enough shovels and don't have permission to search in Syria. The fact was that these WMD's existed. They were used, and this is documented. There is no documentantion of the destruction (or use) of the remaining stockpiles which had been previously inventoried.
'Oh, this is just rich. The No-Fly Zones were not UN-accepted'
Inspection/patrols to ensure and monitor compliance were part of the cease-fire agreement after the first Gulf War. Iraq had no right to ignore it based on silly "spy!" claims. Attacks on these peacekeepers were entirely illegal and unprovoked aggression. To stop these attacks alone, the allies had the right to whomp Saddam's terrorist infrascture as hard as possible.
'Then, before war began, we began bombing essentially at will to try and goad Iraq into attacking the US.'
They (Saddam's terrorists) already had attacked, and were attacking still. Your claim makes no sense. The "attacks" you mention were retaliation for attacks against Americans which had already occured.
'The IAEA and UNMOVIC heads themselves described good cooperation from the Iraqi government. Blix... '
Blix's own reports detailed large infractions. Blix said that Iraq's cooperation was improving, but was not there yet. This compliance was 10 years overdue, and was still not there yet. it is a blatant lie to claim "good cooperation" when the summaries still showed that cooperation was not occuring.
'Hussein Kamel (...informed the teams that Iraq *had* destroyed its chemical and biological agents in order to try and get the embargo '
How many lies must be told to defend Saddam? There is nothing true about this. Iraq refused to document such destruction of the weapons. They were still blocking inspections up until the US large-scale retaliation. If they were eager to end the embargo, they would have welcomed inspections.
'Most of the Iraqi complaints were of the US spying to gather information for war, which turned out to be true.'
Well, duh! Realize that there is no difference between inspection and spying. Under the cease fire agreements at the end of the first Gulf War, Saddam had no right to complain. There would have been no second "war". if he had bothered to comply.
'The closest thing Iraq did to active promotion of terrorism was giving money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers to compensate for Israel's policy of destroying the families' homes'
While you attempt to sugar-coat it, you do mention Saddam's terrorist actions to try to exterminate the Jews. In keeping with "tell any lie in order to prop up Saddam and make Bush look bad", you are forgetting Saddam hosting and harboring numerous terrorists and terrorist organizations.
This is quite typical. None of the arguments used in support of Saddam Hussein and his aggression have any validity.
Perhaps little has changed except that the rest of society has progressed. Enlightened as it was back then, the Muslim empire was savage and brutal by today's standards. Much is made of how well they treated the Jews, but also realize that they made Jews pay a special tax just for being Jewish. They also desecrated and destroyed the vast majority of synagogues in areas they conquered. The area known as Saudi Arabia today once had a large Jewish population. Muhammad ordered these Jews exterminated, and to this day his edict of "no Jews allowed" keeps the peninsula pretty much free of Jews.
Much of the world looked at horror at happened during the Sudan during the 1990s, as the Muslim north raped and pillaged the Christian south. This is what the Muslim empire led by Muhammad typically did in order to expand. it looks pretty bad now, but was the typical "modus operandi" back then.
Certainly not. However, how is this relevant? The US withdrawal from the ABM treaty was "by the book" and did not break any contract. It used the proper method of withdrawal, with the cooperation of the Russian government, no less.
It took months to find Saddam Hussein, and his bunker needed airholes. The WMD's, which clearly did exist (we even have records he used them) don't need airholes, and are easier to hide harder to find.
' we'll have proof that the war had some justification.'
We've had the proof that justifies retaliation for years now: ranging from Saddam's refusal to cooperate with inspections (itself a major cease-fire violation) to his active promotion of terrorism to his many illegal attacks on peacekeepers.
Not very often. Saddam attacked Kuwait with no expectations, or claims of expectations, than Kuwait was threatening to wage war against Iraq. Hitler invaded Poland without a reason of "stopping a Polish war". Etc etc etc.
Because....prepare to be shocked....sometimes leaders do bad things.
'Oh, and did it ever occur to you that even things you might consider "entirely-defensive efforts"'
It does not matter if I "see" them as entirely defensive. It only matters if they really are entirely defensive. The ABM treaty Bush withdrew from allowed Moscow to have short-range missile defense, but prevented Washington from defending itself the same way. It is an outright fact that this particular part of it prevented Washington from doing something that was entirely defensive.
While the space weapons part certainly can be offensive, there was nothing offense-related in the part of the ABM treaty banning missile defense of cities. If anyone claimed that this was "offensive", they were lying.
Haven't you heard? There is no USSR.
'He has stated that the treaties are too limimting and therefore aren't in the best interest of our country, a fact I wholeheartedly disagree with'
At least you admit it is a fact. Too bad you do not like it. Treaties which ban entirely-defensive efforts are certainly not in our interest.
And then there is the Battlestar Galactica to consider. It's been up there since 1980, waiting to come down. I'm not worried about chrome Cylons who fall into piles of tin cans if you so much look at them. It's the Galactica soldiers riding their disco-CHiPS motorcycles and the kids with bad Adam Rich haircuts that are the real danger.
You mean a Beowolf cluster of cloned canids?
How so? Society does not fail because Joe has 2 cars and Jim has 20 cars.
' I don't think it has yet to be proven that, when economical 'liberty' is left unchecked and unbalanced, you do not get the most wellfare for the most people, but rather the a concentration of wellfare for the few. '
In practice, it has turned out that you do get the most "welfare" for the most people.
' Depending on what you consider a worthy goal for a society, you may or may not accept the latter as a welcome evolution. I do not, however.'
I am not interested in forcing society into a direction. I am interested in maximizing freedom.
"a noble thought, and one I can relate too, frankly, because I have libertarian principles also. alas, just like communism, raw capitalism is fine, nay, even great in theory, but sucks in reality."
The problem it has in reality are rather few, especially compared to socialism.
'We already had such capitalism in the 19th century, at least in europe'
We didn't. There was very strong regulation by rulers.
' and if history has shown us anything, it's that unbalanced (with social laws and provisions, thus) capitalism is NOT to the benefit of the populace at large.'
The historic record shows that the most people benefit the most when they are allowed to make their own economic decisions.
' A system where everyone decides what to do with his money, would quicly lead to devastating social inequalities'
This is not a problem, unless someone is unnecessarily and greedily obsessed with what is in another's wallet.
'In practise, what will happen is, that the few will reap the most benefits while the most don't'
This has happened a lot more in socialism than in capitalism. Things actually end up more equal in capitalism.
'The 'social divide' between the poor and the rich is a well known problem'
Here is a big clue: it is not a problem.
'and is considerably higher where people adher (more) to your vision of capitalism (such as in the US) then in EU countries.'
Yet, in the European countries that have been the most socialist, the stratification has been the strongest.
' I disagree with your assessement of companies: most companies are all to greedy, even if they use euphemisms for it to conceil it.'
Perhaps, but the greed of companies is something that goes no-where unless others agree to the demands of the company. The greed of government, in contrast, is backed up by the gun. You cannot escape it.
If only we can get them to stop smashing through walls and bellowing "Must destroy mankind!", we might be onto something.
This is really important for those Martian paintball games.
Those aren't cartoons. They are actual photos of MJ. I take it that this is the first time you have seen the results of his latest "make me look as unreal as possible" plastic surgery.
A note to Jane Jetson and Betty Rubble: do not let Elroy and Bam-Bam respond to those Neverland invitations they just received.
You really want to wreck this robot, don't you?
Can I order this from Acme? My friend the coyote wants to project a tunnel opening onto a blank cliff wall. This time, he wants it to work!
See the comment I just posted:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=157674&cid= 13213468"
I was recently looking to purchase a VHS tape of a classic TV show off eBay. I know this one exists as a regular commercial release, and I wanted to buy the legit copy. I found a certain seller listing it, and was poised to bid until I looked at his feedback.
In the feedback, I found several negative feedback complaints that the seller shipped the buyer a crappy tape taped off of TV. The vague wording in the listing I was interested in (and lack of an image) implied that this, too, was just a copy off of TV. I asked him him if the tape was legit, but got no response.
After this, I would look for this episode, and always find the guy selling his pirated copies. His negative feedback which mentioned the copies being pirated grew. I reported him to eBay a few times. They did nothing. At one time, they said they had no policy against anyone taping commercial shows off TV and selling them.
Q: Is Linux really more secure than Windows? A: MacGibbon: eBay does not endorse any particular platform. ''
Q: Should children eat pellets of rat poison, or should they eat a healthy balanced diet?
A: eBay does not give advice on nutrition.
Q: Should I vacation in the Sunni Triangle, or in Cancun?
A: eBay does not give vacation advice.