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.

"slide" wrote in message
...
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.


I think you are probably right on this, although you have missed out in your
narrative the fact that the British have been trying to sort this country
out for about 150 years and are still fighting there..
What used to be called the 'Northwest frontier' in the time when
pre-partitioned India was part of the 'British Raj' is littered with
cemeteries of British soldiers who died there around about 1870 trying to
produce some sort of order out of the place.
Still the same at present therefore and I am not optimistic that anything so
deeply ingrained is about to change in the foreseeable future.

"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.


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

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)

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".


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.

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.

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".


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.

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.






Yuh know, even Wilbur is more interesting then this political crap,
run by both sides for personal benefit.
G

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 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

"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?

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.

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.

By whom? Rush, Hannity, O'Really, etc. Remember... Air America isn't doing
all that great, even now.

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.

As though anyone can be perfect and not make mistakes... ? He a practical
guy, and the voters overwhelmingly support him. 80 say believe he inherited
the mess and are willing to give him a year to get things in the right
direction.

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.


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

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

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)