Jason
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Post by Jason on Jan 31, 2011 12:32:17 GMT -4
If he's channeling Captain Jack Sparrow, doesn't that really mean that he's channeling Keith Richards, since Johnny Dep was basically just doing a Keith Richards impression while playing Jack Sparrow?
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Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jan 31, 2011 12:30:51 GMT -4
If Egypt's people wants Mubarak gone then we have to advise him to bow to the will of the people. One of our founding principles is that governments should only govern with the consent of the people.
Mubarak has been urged both privately and publicly to open up his government to other parties and engage in other democractic reforms by a long line of US administrations. He didn't listen.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Jan 31, 2011 12:18:27 GMT -4
That's what I am arguing for - the ability to kill anyone I want at any time! It does sound like it: Captain, the clue meter is reading zero. If you want to compare the US military to a bunch of guys who regularly employ suicide bombers on civilian targets - including first responders and police - then any rational person will have to agree that we are in fact the good guys. Or at least the better guys. A broad definition of a terrorist would be anyone who specifically targets civilians and civilian property with the goal of changing a government's policy. Under that definition I am not a terrorist, and neither is the current US government. No, you do not have to be an opponent of the US government in order to be a terrorist. I'm not chanting a mantra. I'm looking at the facts. The facts are that the US is doing everything it can reasonably do to avoid bloodshed while securing Iraq for its people.
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Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jan 28, 2011 17:56:24 GMT -4
So the idea is that the conspirators publically released the real flight recorder used on the plane that they were setting up to be the Pentagon plane and just didn't think anyone would ever actually look at the data on the recorder?
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Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jan 27, 2011 13:03:57 GMT -4
I sometimes wonder why sportscasters continue to interview athletes. Are they really going to say something new and profound, instead of just another round of "we won a good game," or "we're just taking it one game at a time." These guys aren't professional athletes because they are eloquent.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Jan 15, 2011 16:35:16 GMT -4
I'm not going to argue about Bush's motives, and I still think the war in Iraq was the right thing to do, regardless of whether the pre-war intelligence was accurate.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Jan 14, 2011 12:41:59 GMT -4
As best I can tell, the difference between exploiting a situation and using it as a turning point to implement a policy or action is primarily one of whether you thing the proposed action. Not really. Using a tragedy to implement any policy, even a good one, might be called exploiting it. If the President goes to the sight of a tragedy and says "we're going to get the people responsible" or "we're going to learn from this", then I don't see that as exploiting. If he goes to a tragedy and says "this shows how my opponents are wrong," or "this shows how I was right," then I feel that is exploiting it. I will give President Obama credit for saying that political rhetoric didn't cause the tragedy in Arizona when he spoke there the other day.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Jan 14, 2011 12:33:07 GMT -4
I don't believe it was personally motivated either. Yes, I genuinely believe that President Bush believed that Saddam had or could obtain WMDs and would eventually have used them against us. 9/11 simply made it obvious to the public that there was no way to defend us except by removing the threat. Well people believe that the moonlandings were filmed in Area 51 too.... But disbelieving a historic event is a little bit different from believing that a person's stated motives are true.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Jan 14, 2011 12:31:08 GMT -4
During the Bush presidency anyone who was critical of him was told to shut up because you aren't allowed to criticize a President during a time of war. It's treasonous and gives aid to the enemy. His decisions were getting people killed, but we weren't allowed to say anything. Why have Republicans forgotten this now that Obama is President? That's funny, because I remember a lot of anti-Bush rhetoric during his presidency. "Bush lied, people died", "No Blood for Oil", any of that ring a bell?
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Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jan 13, 2011 17:18:08 GMT -4
In this instance, yes, it was mutually exclusive. Because they deliberately said they weren't going to do anything else until they got their tax cut. One could easily argue that it was the Democrats, who after all had control of the agenda in both houses of Congress, who were holding first responders hostage to their attempt at raising taxes. Only on the class of people they think deserve it, of course. The net effect of this "tax cut" being that someone who was making $1 million a year before will pay exactly the same tax rate today. You mean, "aside from the fact that it wouldn't have passed the Democratic minority without an expiration date"? I believe they said that preventing a tax increase for anyone, was in our best interest during a recession. And they were right. Just like every poll I've read showed that Americans didn't want the Health Care Reform bill? Yes they did. Halellujah. Now if only they had done it for the right reasons - like realizing that a tax increase on those most likely to hire people and invest is probably not the best way to fix an economy that's having a rough time.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Jan 13, 2011 17:07:09 GMT -4
I don't consider that to have been politically motivated. No, it was personally motivated, but he used 9/11 as a lever to get what he wanted when otherwise it would have been a harder sell. By pointing at 9/11 and saying "Imagine what would have happened in Saddam had given them WMDs for that," he was able to sway a lot of people that wouldn't have supported him on just a "But they might get WMDs" line. I don't believe it was personally motivated either. Yes, I genuinely believe that President Bush believed that Saddam had or could obtain WMDs and would eventually have used them against us. 9/11 simply made it obvious to the public that there was no way to defend us except by removing the threat.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Jan 13, 2011 12:37:50 GMT -4
This is exactly what I did with my game world. 12 months of 30 days. Each month has 3 weeks of 10 days. The remaining 5 days are used as special days, 1 for the Winter and summer soltices, and 1 for the spring and autumn equinoxs. The 5th day is added to summer for a secondary holiday. Sounds a lot like the calendar Tolkien designed for Middle Earth: 12 months of 30 days, with 5 special non-month days in there as well (in some years, 6). I really liked that idea myself. Yes, it's basically Tolkien's Middle Earth calendar. Bonus Geek points for Bert for recognizing it. As for how the odd days work for computers - we have basically the same problem now with holidays and weekends, so doing it Tolkien's way wouldn't really cause any more problems. If you ever look at a mortgage or other real estate contract you'll see that they usually specify whether interest will be charged on calendar months or 30-day months.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jan 13, 2011 12:31:47 GMT -4
I don't think he did exploit them for political reasons. Ummm, hello... the whole invading Iraq thing. I don't consider that to have been politically motivated.
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Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jan 13, 2011 12:30:47 GMT -4
I don't think he did exploit them for political reasons. Of course you don't, because you're a Republican and a Republican would never speak poorly of the best President since Ronald Reagan. President Bush let spending get way out of control and didn't use his veto nearly often enough. His attempt to appoint Harriet Mires to the Supreme Court was wrong-headed from the beginning. He made mistakes in the early management of the war in Iraq that resulted in lost lives. His administration did not see the signs that we were headed for a bursting of the real estate bubble, and failed to stop the policies that were encouraging banks to lend to people that couldn't actually afford to repay them. He had real problems with his communication skills. The fact that I think the Iraq war was a generally good thing doesn't mean I think Bush himself was a saint.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jan 13, 2011 12:19:10 GMT -4
Or when Republicans thought their tax break was more important than health benefits for 9/11 first responders? I for one appreciate that the Democrats failed to raise taxes considering the country's current economic situation.
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