Yeah, I know "plonk"
 

On Thu, 5 Mar 2009 17:30:36 -0800, "Capt. JG"
wrote:

"Bruce In Bangkok" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 5 Mar 2009 10:12:51 -0800, "Capt. JG"
wrote:

"Bruce In Bangkok" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 2 Mar 2009 10:47:50 -0800, "Capt. JG"
wrote:

"slide" wrote in message
...
Bruce in Bangkok wrote:
On Sun, 1 Mar 2009 21:49:23 -0800, "Capt. JG"
wrote:


As I said, I really didn't pay much attention and it was only a
impression I was left with.

But good on him if he can get out of that mess. Of course, there is
another 70,000 tip-toeing off to Afghanistan but apparently we are
getting out of Iraq... well, except for some that will be left to
ensure peace, aid the locals, or whatever.

I do wonder about the Afghan thing though. It is my certain, sure,
recollection that a number of people have gone over there to teach
'em
"what is what". None successfully, but they went. the Brits even went
twice if my memory serves me. There is that quote about "those who
refuse
to read history are doomed
to repeat it".


First, Obama is just another dishonest misdirecting politician in the
mold
of Clinton. His claim that he'll get US 'combat troops' out of Iraq by
X
date only means he'll switch their title from combat troops to
something
else - probably 'peace keepers'. So we'll remain in the morass
indefinitely but change the names we're in the morass under.

Afghanistan is scary and dangerous. I am plugged into an Afghan local
community which has close ties to the home nation and whose members
travel
there regularly. The place is a mess - kept afloat by the heroin
trade,
being fought over by the Russians, Pakistanis, al Qeada, and Taliban
as
well as the US and the US backed government in Kabul. It makes Iraq
look
like a well organized peaceful kingdom.

We cannot fix these places. We can only ruin our economy further while
leaving our dead and wounded soldiers on the field of battle. Obama is
just Bush sporting even less fiscal responsibility. He's disgusting.


Sounds like you're pretty bitter about your buddies losing the election.
You
should probably get over it. Obama has been in for a month. Bush was on
vacation for the first eight months.

I've said a number of times that I haven't lived in the US for years
and have little interest in the US political system; except to wonder
at the things that are done.

It is a bit difficult to understand why they try to turf one guy out
of office for getting a blow job and don't even seem to notice when
another guy "legalizes" such things as torture and searches without a
warrant - things that you are preaching to the world are "human
rights".


Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)


Maybe you should take an interest. No longer a US citizen? Well, ok then.


Why should I take an interest in a place where I no longer reside?
Other then a sort of idle interest, mostly excited by what appears to
be the rather violent disagreements between adherents of the two
political parties - at least verbally.

Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)


No idea.... usually citizens of a country care about that country no matter
where they live. If you've got a nice life in Bangkok, that's great. No
relatives or friends in the US?


Probably some sort of cousins or perhaps second cousins. Kids or grand
kids of my mother's sisters but if there are any left I haven't seen
them in 50 years, or more, and probably wouldn't even remember their
names.

I suppose I do care about the old country but it certainly seems like
a strange place to me now.

The quote I saw somewhere that the AVERAGE American owes $10,000 on
his credit card, for instance. I don't know whether it is true but I
read it on Usenet :-) But when I lived there nobody that I knew owed
$10,000 except on a house. Certainly not on a credit card.

Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)

Yeah, I know "plonk"
 

On Thu, 5 Mar 2009 19:37:47 -0800, "Capt. JG"
wrote:

"Bruce In Bangkok" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 11:44:07 -0800, Stephen Trapani
wrote:

Aragorn wrote:
It is a bit difficult to understand why they try to turf one guy out
of office for getting a blow job and don't even seem to notice when
another guy "legalizes" such things as torture and searches without a
warrant - things that you are preaching to the world are "human
rights".

All societies, including ours, consider it reasonable that some level of
criminal or enemy should lose many of their rights by virtue of
protecting society. When you find yourself defending the very lowest
scum of the earth, you should at least question the moral strength of
what you are arguing, shouldn't you?


I'm not defending anyone. I'm simply stating that people (perhaps men
mostly) find the rather violent reaction to one man doing something
that comes rather naturally and a different man doing something that
caused (and don't think it didn't) considerable loss of face for the
nation. How can a country that advocates justice and the rule of law
to foreign countries turn around and carryout the excesses that
happened?

It isn't that you tortured the people, it is that you preach justice
and rule of law to all the developing countries. Do as I say, not as I
do.

It's not hard to understand when you remember that the both of those
things,
the impeachment and the trashing of the constitution, were being done by
the
same party. As for no one noticing, the Republicans have built a huge
propaganda machine called conservative Talk Radio. It's running as
background noise 24 hours a day out there in the hinterlands filling the
pickup trucks, hardware stores, and autobody shops with a constant and
subliminal stream of lies and propaganda. You wouldn't recognize the
country if you came back. This poison, which is the only source of
"news"
that a huge proportion of the country (aka "The Republican Base), pays
any
attention to, is like the public loudspeakers in North Korea.

Yeah, finally (during the Clinton era), instead of overwhelming numbers
on the side of 'iberally biased media, the right got their little corner
of the media pie and are doing well at carrying an audience. They are
still in the minority though. It does seem that people tend to restrict
themselves exclusively to the biased news that they favor, like you say,
but you are totally wrong about conservative media being anyone's only
choice for news. Not even close. My lefty friends pretty much never
watch or listen to conservative media. Oh how they love MSNBC and Rachel
Maddow, who is really about as biased as it gets.

If people want to truly understand what is best, they need to understand
the best arguments on both sides.

This demographic was sufficient for decades to keep tipping a nearly
evenly
divided country to the right. When things got sufficiently trashed by
the
looting, two things happened. The comfortable and complacent on the
left
woke up and a significant proportion of the talk radio listeners
realized
they were being lied to.

I'm so glad Obama and the congress won. In fact, I voted for Obama. I
wanted all the kook lefties to see all the mistakes Obama was going to
make and all the "corruption" that would still exist. This stuff is
inherent in the system and had little to do with Bush. Did you see
yesterday where the Obama administration reached a deal with the Justice
department so the Bush AG firing scandal didn't go to trial? They didn't
want to take the chance that the executive branch would lose any power
that the Bush admin. had gained.

The kooky left has been jumping on Bush for stuff that has been going on
for 200 years. Now the chickens will come home to roost.

Stephen


I had an interesting conversation with a Vietnamese lawyer back during
the war days. I asked him who he voted for and he replied, "what is
the difference?" I asked what he meant and he said, "They are all
crooks, else why would they be in politics?" As years go by it seems
that he have have been correct.
Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)


I think that's a popular notion, but it's not really accurate. It's like
people claim that those Congress are lacking in ethics. The real issue is
that ethics are in shades of grey. It's not a black/white issue. Sure, there
are crooked politicians, just like there are crooked, unethical docs,
lawyers, priests, etc.

I was being cynical. But, I suspect that just as an engineer wants to
design the best bridge or the banker wants to make the most money that
a politician wants to be reelected most of all. Which can slant an
individual's point of view somewhat.

And I would guess that politicians are extremely sensitive to what the
'folks at home' think of what he is doing and from my experiences the
solid, middle of the road, people don't write letters, it is the
fringe people that are the frantic letter writers so I can see how
they can get wrong ideas.

And, of course any politician who isn't doing what I think is right
must be taking bribes form somebody to vote the way he does...... :-)

Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)

Yeah, I know "plonk"
 

On Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:15:08 +0700, Bruce In Bangkok
wrote:

I suspect that just as an engineer wants to
design the best bridge

Normally they design the minimum, that is cheapest, that will do the
job. This does not mean no safety margin. There is, however, no point
to making the deck far stronger than the piers. As for the best,
nobody wants to pay for it. They want good enough, and as cheap as
possible.

Casady

Yeah, I know "plonk"
 

Bruce In Bangkok wrote:
On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 11:44:07 -0800, Stephen Trapani
wrote:

Aragorn wrote:
It is a bit difficult to understand why they try to turf one guy out
of office for getting a blow job and don't even seem to notice when
another guy "legalizes" such things as torture and searches without a
warrant - things that you are preaching to the world are "human
rights".
All societies, including ours, consider it reasonable that some level of
criminal or enemy should lose many of their rights by virtue of
protecting society. When you find yourself defending the very lowest
scum of the earth, you should at least question the moral strength of
what you are arguing, shouldn't you?


I'm not defending anyone. I'm simply stating that people (perhaps men
mostly) find the rather violent reaction to one man doing something
that comes rather naturally and a different man doing something that
caused (and don't think it didn't) considerable loss of face for the
nation. How can a country that advocates justice and the rule of law
to foreign countries turn around and carryout the excesses that
happened?

It isn't that you tortured the people, it is that you preach justice
and rule of law to all the developing countries. Do as I say, not as I
do.

Again, there is a level of immorality that justifies treating people
badly. Recently the badness of human took a big step downward with the
advent of extremists who actually target and are able to murder large
groups of innocent people. This new level of badness requires a
modification of the normal response. In other words, if you strongly
suspect someone of being about to kill a large group of innocent people,
there is justification in torturing him or of course even killing him if
it helps you stop it from happening.

Now having said that, lets contrast the US response, compared to those
we are fighting. The entire country was and still is up in arms for
years in questioning the morality of dunking vicious criminals in water
and scaring them. We may have done it, but we are concerned about doing
it and spend much time trying to figure out if it is over the line so we
can stop. Meanwhile, as a recruiting tool, the enemy makes videotapes of
themselves cutting off innocent kidnap victims heads in order to attract
more people to their cause. No remorse of any sort, only further
celebration and congratulations have ever been evident. See the massive
difference? So we haven't really sunk anywhere at all, morally.

Meanwhile, if we've got a line on someone who we've discovered is about
to murder another few thousand people, what actions are justified to get
him to reveal information that can stop it? Harsh language only?

Stephen

Yeah, I know "plonk"
 

"Stephen Trapani" wrote in message
...
Bruce In Bangkok wrote:
On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 11:44:07 -0800, Stephen Trapani
wrote:

Aragorn wrote:
It is a bit difficult to understand why they try to turf one guy out
of office for getting a blow job and don't even seem to notice when
another guy "legalizes" such things as torture and searches without a
warrant - things that you are preaching to the world are "human
rights".
All societies, including ours, consider it reasonable that some level of
criminal or enemy should lose many of their rights by virtue of
protecting society. When you find yourself defending the very lowest
scum of the earth, you should at least question the moral strength of
what you are arguing, shouldn't you?


I'm not defending anyone. I'm simply stating that people (perhaps men
mostly) find the rather violent reaction to one man doing something
that comes rather naturally and a different man doing something that
caused (and don't think it didn't) considerable loss of face for the
nation. How can a country that advocates justice and the rule of law
to foreign countries turn around and carryout the excesses that
happened?

It isn't that you tortured the people, it is that you preach justice
and rule of law to all the developing countries. Do as I say, not as I
do.

Again, there is a level of immorality that justifies treating people
badly. Recently the badness of human took a big step downward with the
advent of extremists who actually target and are able to murder large
groups of innocent people. This new level of badness requires a
modification of the normal response. In other words, if you strongly
suspect someone of being about to kill a large group of innocent people,
there is justification in torturing him or of course even killing him if
it helps you stop it from happening.

Now having said that, lets contrast the US response, compared to those we
are fighting. The entire country was and still is up in arms for years in
questioning the morality of dunking vicious criminals in water and scaring
them. We may have done it, but we are concerned about doing it and spend
much time trying to figure out if it is over the line so we can stop.
Meanwhile, as a recruiting tool, the enemy makes videotapes of themselves
cutting off innocent kidnap victims heads in order to attract more people
to their cause. No remorse of any sort, only further celebration and
congratulations have ever been evident. See the massive difference? So we
haven't really sunk anywhere at all, morally.

Meanwhile, if we've got a line on someone who we've discovered is about to
murder another few thousand people, what actions are justified to get him
to reveal information that can stop it? Harsh language only?

Stephen

Our retaliation is always justified, theirs is never justified. Interesting
rulebook.

Yeah, I know "plonk"
 

Capt. JG wrote:
"Stephen Trapani" wrote in message
...
Aragorn wrote:
It is a bit difficult to understand why they try to turf one guy out
of office for getting a blow job and don't even seem to notice when
another guy "legalizes" such things as torture and searches without a
warrant - things that you are preaching to the world are "human
rights".
All societies, including ours, consider it reasonable that some level of
criminal or enemy should lose many of their rights by virtue of protecting
society. When you find yourself defending the very lowest scum of the
earth, you should at least question the moral strength of what you are
arguing, shouldn't you?

It's not hard to understand when you remember that the both of those
things, the impeachment and the trashing of the constitution, were being
done by the same party. As for no one noticing, the Republicans have
built a huge propaganda machine called conservative Talk Radio. It's
running as background noise 24 hours a day out there in the hinterlands
filling the pickup trucks, hardware stores, and autobody shops with a
constant and subliminal stream of lies and propaganda. You wouldn't
recognize the country if you came back. This poison, which is the only
source of "news" that a huge proportion of the country (aka "The
Republican Base), pays any attention to, is like the public loudspeakers
in North Korea.
Yeah, finally (during the Clinton era), instead of overwhelming numbers on
the side of liberally biased media, the right got their little corner of
the media pie and are doing well at carrying an audience. They are still
in the minority though. It does seem that people tend to restrict
themselves exclusively to the biased news that they favor, like you say,
but you are totally wrong about conservative media being anyone's only
choice for news. Not even close. My lefty friends pretty much never watch
or listen to conservative media. Oh how they love MSNBC and Rachel Maddow,
who is really about as biased as it gets.

If the media is liberally biased, by which I think you mean left-biased,
then how can they have "their little corner" that is "still in the
minority"? Either the media is left-biased or it isn't. Do you consider
Rush's millions of ditto head dunder heads a "little corner" of the media
audience?

Well, on one side we've got AP, Reuters, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Time
magazine, Newsweek, and a healthy smattering of radio affiliates. On the
other side we've got Fox and Limbaugh. I'm sure I left off a few lessers
on both sides. It's not even close.

If people want to truly understand what is best, they need to understand
the best arguments on both sides.

No. They need to understand the arguments. Sometimes, there's only one side.
This was what was wrong with the fairness doctrine, among other things.

If there is a conflict of opinion about what is right and wrong then
there are two conflicting arguments. Bias is essentially ignoring one
side. The only path to truth is understanding both arguments so you can
pick the better one. This doesn't require the Fairness Doctrine.

[...]
The kooky left has been jumping on Bush for stuff that has been going on
for 200 years. Now the chickens will come home to roost.

?? Huh? Bush has been around for 200 years? I thought that "demographic was
sufficient for decades to keep tipping a nearly evenly divided country to
the right." So, if that's the case, it must be Clinton's fault.

The things Bush did, like trying to increase the Presidents power, have
been going on for 200 years. In the example I gave, Obama is currently
trying to maintain Bush's gain whereby Presidential aids are considered
to be above criminal prosecution. The kooks were jumping all over Bush
as if these actions made him impeachable or evil. Apparently they
haven't noticed that Obama is picking up where Bush left off. This is
the normal balance of power struggle that occurs in our government.

Stephen

Yeah, I know "plonk"
 

On Fri, 06 Mar 2009 07:32:06 -0800, Stephen Trapani
wrote:

Again, there is a level of immorality that justifies treating people
badly. Recently the badness of human took a big step downward with the
advent of extremists who actually target and are able to murder large
groups of innocent people. This new level of badness requires a
modification of the normal response. In other words, if you strongly
suspect someone of being about to kill a large group of innocent people,
there is justification in torturing him or of course even killing him if
it helps you stop it from happening.

That's a big load of hogswaller used to justify sadistic tendencies.
Antithetical to concepts of law we cherish, most importantly "innocent
until proven guilty."
It is absolutely amazing to me that Americans - who grew up with a
menu of films and print where sadistic Nazi's, Japs and mobsters
tortured innocent people and are reviled for it - fall for this 24
Hours and Dirty Harry TV crap to make decisions.
"Strongly suspect."
What the **** does that mean?
Is that less or more suspicion than there was about the weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq?
So who decides who gets tortured?
You?
I'm going to let you decide who to torture based on your "morality?"
You, a torturer?
Why would anybody trust the moral judgement of a torturer?
**** you pal.
You are too stupid to even understand what I just said, or you
wouldn't have even made those lame-ass comments.
I've got no problem with GI's shooting and killing just about anything
in sight on the battlefield. Even when their hands are up.
It's the warrior's call. Spare the girls and babies.
But even less of a problem for a bullet to the head of a torturer.
That's the guy who might "strongly suspect" and torture my son
when his only crime was to get the girl the torturer wanted.
We call this end result "the slippery slope of taking a stroll outside
the rule of law."
Ever hear the term "banality of evil?"
You exemplify it. You are one banal dude.
Did I mention you're stupid?
Of all the ****-ups of the Bush administration, getting saps to
believe that torture is acceptable conduct is the worst by far.

--Vic

Yeah, I know "plonk"
 

KLC Lewis wrote:
"Stephen Trapani" wrote in message
...
Bruce In Bangkok wrote:
On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 11:44:07 -0800, Stephen Trapani
wrote:

Aragorn wrote:
It is a bit difficult to understand why they try to turf one guy out
of office for getting a blow job and don't even seem to notice when
another guy "legalizes" such things as torture and searches without a
warrant - things that you are preaching to the world are "human
rights".
All societies, including ours, consider it reasonable that some level of
criminal or enemy should lose many of their rights by virtue of
protecting society. When you find yourself defending the very lowest
scum of the earth, you should at least question the moral strength of
what you are arguing, shouldn't you?

I'm not defending anyone. I'm simply stating that people (perhaps men
mostly) find the rather violent reaction to one man doing something
that comes rather naturally and a different man doing something that
caused (and don't think it didn't) considerable loss of face for the
nation. How can a country that advocates justice and the rule of law
to foreign countries turn around and carryout the excesses that
happened?

It isn't that you tortured the people, it is that you preach justice
and rule of law to all the developing countries. Do as I say, not as I
do.
Again, there is a level of immorality that justifies treating people
badly. Recently the badness of human took a big step downward with the
advent of extremists who actually target and are able to murder large
groups of innocent people. This new level of badness requires a
modification of the normal response. In other words, if you strongly
suspect someone of being about to kill a large group of innocent people,
there is justification in torturing him or of course even killing him if
it helps you stop it from happening.

Now having said that, lets contrast the US response, compared to those we
are fighting. The entire country was and still is up in arms for years in
questioning the morality of dunking vicious criminals in water and scaring
them. We may have done it, but we are concerned about doing it and spend
much time trying to figure out if it is over the line so we can stop.
Meanwhile, as a recruiting tool, the enemy makes videotapes of themselves
cutting off innocent kidnap victims heads in order to attract more people
to their cause. No remorse of any sort, only further celebration and
congratulations have ever been evident. See the massive difference? So we
haven't really sunk anywhere at all, morally.

Meanwhile, if we've got a line on someone who we've discovered is about to
murder another few thousand people, what actions are justified to get him
to reveal information that can stop it? Harsh language only?

Stephen

Our retaliation is always justified, theirs is never justified. Interesting
rulebook.

No, a retaliation is merited based upon the objective basis of the
offense and objective moral imperative to do something. I have stated
these above. If we are targeting their innocent civilians, trying to
kill as many as possible, based upon our religion, they are justified to
use violence to stop us.


Stephen

Yeah, I know "plonk"
 

"Stephen Trapani" wrote in message
...
No, a retaliation is merited based upon the objective basis of the offense
and objective moral imperative to do something. I have stated these above.
If we are targeting their innocent civilians, trying to kill as many as
possible, based upon our religion, they are justified to use violence to
stop us.


Stephen

We are killing people, even today, with robots and "smart bombs." From
hundreds, or even thousands, of miles away, these devices are pointed at
their targets and told to go explode. As these devices are incapable of
determining for themselves whether or not they are targeting innocent
people, they just do as they are told and kill everyone within the immediate
blast zone.

Now, you tell me: Are we "targeting their innocent civilians"?

We have the audacity to call people who are defending themselves from an
invading army "terrorists," while our weapons are launched at them from a
safe distance. We shudder at the thought of civilians who strap explosives
to themselves and give their lives to take out the enemy, calling them
"cowards," while we kill them from another continent at no danger to
ourselves. And any innocents we happen to kill are "regretable accidents,"
or "collateral damage."

Excuse me while become I sick to my stomach.

Yeah, I know "plonk"
 

"Stephen Trapani" wrote in message
...
Capt. JG wrote:
"Stephen Trapani" wrote in message
...
Aragorn wrote:
It is a bit difficult to understand why they try to turf one guy out
of office for getting a blow job and don't even seem to notice when
another guy "legalizes" such things as torture and searches without a
warrant - things that you are preaching to the world are "human
rights".
All societies, including ours, consider it reasonable that some level of
criminal or enemy should lose many of their rights by virtue of
protecting society. When you find yourself defending the very lowest
scum of the earth, you should at least question the moral strength of
what you are arguing, shouldn't you?

It's not hard to understand when you remember that the both of those
things, the impeachment and the trashing of the constitution, were
being done by the same party. As for no one noticing, the Republicans
have built a huge propaganda machine called conservative Talk Radio.
It's running as background noise 24 hours a day out there in the
hinterlands filling the pickup trucks, hardware stores, and autobody
shops with a constant and subliminal stream of lies and propaganda.
You wouldn't recognize the country if you came back. This poison,
which is the only source of "news" that a huge proportion of the
country (aka "The Republican Base), pays any attention to, is like the
public loudspeakers in North Korea.
Yeah, finally (during the Clinton era), instead of overwhelming numbers
on the side of liberally biased media, the right got their little corner
of the media pie and are doing well at carrying an audience. They are
still in the minority though. It does seem that people tend to restrict
themselves exclusively to the biased news that they favor, like you say,
but you are totally wrong about conservative media being anyone's only
choice for news. Not even close. My lefty friends pretty much never
watch or listen to conservative media. Oh how they love MSNBC and Rachel
Maddow, who is really about as biased as it gets.

If the media is liberally biased, by which I think you mean left-biased,
then how can they have "their little corner" that is "still in the
minority"? Either the media is left-biased or it isn't. Do you consider
Rush's millions of ditto head dunder heads a "little corner" of the media
audience?

Well, on one side we've got AP, Reuters, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Time
magazine, Newsweek, and a healthy smattering of radio affiliates. On the
other side we've got Fox and Limbaugh. I'm sure I left off a few lessers
on both sides. It's not even close.

Come on! You said the media is left-biased and then you said they have their
little corner. Claiming all the major news outlets are left-biased is pretty
hard to justify, given that they're all controlled by major corps., which
are not exactly pro left.


If people want to truly understand what is best, they need to understand
the best arguments on both sides.

No. They need to understand the arguments. Sometimes, there's only one
side. This was what was wrong with the fairness doctrine, among other
things.

If there is a conflict of opinion about what is right and wrong then there
are two conflicting arguments. Bias is essentially ignoring one side. The
only path to truth is understanding both arguments so you can pick the
better one. This doesn't require the Fairness Doctrine.

No. Sorry. If you have someone who believes in rape vs. respecting women,
you can't claim that there are two conflicting arguments.

[...]
The kooky left has been jumping on Bush for stuff that has been going on
for 200 years. Now the chickens will come home to roost.

?? Huh? Bush has been around for 200 years? I thought that "demographic
was sufficient for decades to keep tipping a nearly evenly divided
country to the right." So, if that's the case, it must be Clinton's
fault.

The things Bush did, like trying to increase the Presidents power, have
been going on for 200 years. In the example I gave, Obama is currently
trying to maintain Bush's gain whereby Presidential aids are considered to
be above criminal prosecution. The kooks were jumping all over Bush as if
these actions made him impeachable or evil. Apparently they haven't
noticed that Obama is picking up where Bush left off. This is the normal
balance of power struggle that occurs in our government.

Like the Yoo memos basically establishing the legal justification for a
dictatorship. Well, ok.



--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com