I couldn't help but laugh at that cut!macadavy wrote:nojoy
The canadian civil war continues.
I couldn't help but laugh at that cut!macadavy wrote:nojoy
But that's exactly my point: you always vote the same people!kirk wrote:Ha! That's funny. But we seem to give someone new a chance frequently, and they don't disappoint.The problem with conservative people is that they'd rather spend their lives getting screwed the way they're used to, rather than give someone new a chance --
All you have to do is google things like "stop loss" and "backdoor draft" to realize that this is not the whole picture. The smaller percentage of the army that are combat troops are being forced into multiple tours of duty in Iraq. Here are some stories:The draft end in 1973. The US military is all volunteer. Everyone in the US military has enlisted or re-enlisted after the start of the war in Iraq. The US military has about 1.4 million on active duty and 1.2 million in reserves. There's only about 140k in Iraq.
Kucinich is pretty good, better than the rest of the D's. Either Paul or Kucinich should be supported I think. Your characterisation of Paul's position is not quite correct. He simply wants to conform to the US Constitution. And even he recognizes that is impossible in the short term, but he at least wants to go in that direction rather than away from it as has been the trend recently. Paul's bottom line is that he supports the Constitution and freedom, and that's why he's my hero.Ron Paul believes that government is the problem and we will all be better off when we are completely rid of it.
There are any number of online betting sites, e.g. http://www.gambling911.com/Political-Betting.htmlI'm not a gambling man, but If Vegas was giving probable odds on ether, I'd have to get some of that action.
As opposed to allowing Hitler to enslave all of Europe?As to WWII, it didn't make that much sense to work to defeat one murderous dictator by allying with an even more murderous dictator, Stalin. We thus enabled the iron curtain and the enslavement of Eastern Europe for decades.
Yes that seems to be the odds of winning the Republican nomination. But in a field that only has maybe 4 candidates that the average person could name, 8 to 1 odds seem very poor.Back in August Ron Paul was down to 8 to 1 odds from previous very long odds.
That's pretty much the same propaganda that was spread here. The fall of Saigon happened April 30 1975, two years AFTER the American military left Vietnam. The last American troops departed in their entirety March 29 1973. The embassy guard detail was evacuated when South fell.Maybe you got censored news in the US, but from here, the US was losing the war and hurting really badly. As the Vietcong were taking over the South, the US had to make a run for it.
The military is good at killing people and breaking things. When it tries to do something else, it's not very effective. The US won every battle, but lost the war... the "war" got turned into a "police action" and our men lost the ability to get the job done.
Well, I was a young fellow when all that happened. The war started when I was in high school and in Australia we had national service (compulsory callup) by ballot, and fortunately I didn't get called up, besides, I went on to university and anyone going onto further study was exempt.kirk wrote:That's pretty much the same propaganda that was spread here. The fall of Saigon happened April 30 1975, two years AFTER the American military left Vietnam. The last American troops departed in their entirety March 29 1973. The embassy guard detail was evacuated when South fell.Maybe you got censored news in the US, but from here, the US was losing the war and hurting really badly. As the Vietcong were taking over the South, the US had to make a run for it.
Yeah, there was a lot of political interference in the bombing campaign, that lessened its effectiveness. Even so, a million tons of missiles is a lot, and much of the North's infrastructure was destroyed (and about 2 million civilians). To quote from the wikipedia:kirk wrote:Well I wasn't trying to put a spin on anything, just pointing out that the US army didn't have to make a run for it. The US lost the will to fight the war. Also, the US could have bombed the North back to the stone age, but didn't.
The wikipedia even has a page on Operation Rolling Thunder:The bombing campaign, which ultimately lasted three years, was intended to force North Vietnam to cease its support for the NLF by threatening to destroy North Vietnam's air defenses and industrial infrastructure. As well, it was aimed at bolstering the morale of the South Vietnamese.[86] Between March 1965 and November 1968, "Rolling Thunder" deluged the north with a million tons of missiles, rockets and bombs.[87] Bombing was not restricted to North Vietnam. Other aerial campaigns, such as Operation Commando Hunt, targeted different parts of the NLF and PAVN infrastructure. These included the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which ran through Laos and Cambodia. The objective of forcing North Vietnam to stop its support for the NLF, however, was never reached. As one officer noted "this is a political war and it calls for discriminate killing. The best weapon … would be a knife … The worst is an airplane."[88] The Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force Curtis LeMay, however, had long advocated saturation bombing in Vietnam and wrote of the Communists that "we're going to bomb them back into the Stone Age".
And this shows the extent of the damage caused by defoliation:Documents declassified by the Vietnamese government in 1995 revealed that 5.1 million people died during the Hanoi's conflict with the United States. Four million civilians died in the North and South. Total military casualties were put at 1.1 million and 600,000 wounded. Hanoi concealed the figures during the war to avoid demoralizing the population.
In 1961–1962, the Kennedy administration authorized the use of chemicals to destroy rice crops. Between 1961 and 1967, the U.S. Air Force sprayed 20 million U.S. gallons (75 700 000 L) of concentrated herbicides over 6 million acres (24 000 km²) of crops and trees, affecting an estimated 13% of South Vietnam's land. A 1967 study by the Agronomy Section of the Japanese Science Council concluded that 3.8 million acres (15 000 km²) of foliage had been destroyed, possibly also leading to the deaths of 1,000 peasants and 13,000 head of livestock.
As of 2006, the Vietnamese government estimates that there are over 4,000,000 victims of dioxin poisoning in Vietnam, although the United States government denies any conclusive scientific links between Agent Orange and the Vietnamese victims of dioxin poisoning. In some areas of southern Vietnam dioxin levels remain at over 100 times the accepted international standard.[148]
"You [an insurgent] once said to me [Michael Ware] if the Americans left, your war was over. What now, if the Americans leave, what will you do?" He [the insurgent] looked at me straight back and said, "If the Americans leave now, I must follow them wherever they go."
But...
I do, however, agree with the crux of your argument. Radical Islamists have long been split in their approach to confronting the West. Many argue that the West is too powerful to be defeated militarily and that instead they should use the their so-called "demographic weapon" and the West's own liberal political system to defeat it. In the opposing camp, bin Laden and his fellow violent Islamists argue (somewhat convincingly) that the West -- and the US in particular -- is a 'paper tiger', too politically correct and cowardly to stand against the mujahideen.
Abandoning Iraq or Afghanistan would essentially hand both military and ideological victory to bin Laden, proving that those in the 'peaceful' Islamist camp should join him. It is thus more important than ever to demonstrate to these warring camps that the West's resolve is steeled; that we will never cow to the forces of evil and violence that are so determined to crush our spirits.
Good point!Pizzasgood wrote:Perhaps more significantly:
teach them to see both sides of an issue! Too many people only see their side, and never stop to think..
Huh..Sure, it's wrong for the Yeerks to enslave other creatures (which involves wrapping themselves around the brain and taking control of the body, while the owner is trapped inside his own mind, helpless). But does that mean they shouldn't be allowed to experience vision and taste? To be able to physically manipulate things? How do you find a compromise there? Would it be ethical to genetically engineer a symbiote they could use, that would benefit from having a Yeerk in its head? Or are you just designing a creature specifically to be enslaved? These are things that would make good essays. Not crap like "Write about the use of colors as symbolism in the Great Gatsby."
I'm gonna be looking into this Animorphs stuff..OTOH, that would involve making people actually think, and besides, a book with the word "enslavement" might offend someone.
[/rant]
That should work for me..series targeted at young readers. War, genocide, slavery, prejudice, manipulation, fighting your family, nasty weapons, pacifism, torture, greed, corruption, traitors, divorce, killing your own food, it's all there. Simplistic sometimes so kids can grasp it, but it gets the point across.
Nice Conclusion.. mind you, I'm still pretty good at breaking linux stuff, or at least figuring it out..One of the reasons I like Linux is that we may have our stupid little arguments sometimes, but for the most part, we actually cooperate. People come togeather, but instead of breaking, stuff they create things.