Firestarter

By the way, Ripper, I'm still waiting for an answer to these questions.

I suppose people should be robbed of the right to have all the information presented to them in order to decide what they believe, eh? Or did it suddenly become right for only one view to find representation in the educational system when I wasn't looking? Oh, no. Oh, hell no. Don't even imagine for so much as one second that you're getting away with that "equal representation" crap here. Evolution is not a "view." It is SCIENTIFIC FACT. Creationism is not "information." It is RELIGIOUS DOGMA. And you and the rest of your shrill, bleating, pathetically ignorant herd can keep your stinking sheep-shit out of SCIENCE classes in PUBLIC schools.

Ion Mihai Pacepa, former chief of Romanian intelligence, talks about how the Soviet Union turned Arafat into what he is today - and why. Click here for the full story.

Not really. It's an excellent pick-up line, especially if it's true. If you're a field agent, yeah. From everything I've read Wilson's wife was nothing of the sort. Technically it's still illegal for someone else to disclose it, but it doesn't really matter if you tell someone else yourself, if you're just shuffling papers. Analysts can't put anyone else in danger by revealing their position. No harm, no foul. Technically, possibly. In practice, it'd be extremely unusual. Partly true. I wouldn't have been allowed to go into detail, so I never did. Also, no one here knows who I am, with the exception of Tom, and Tom could easily be cleared for that sort of thing anyway, if he isn't already.

Indeed. Someone move this.

Oddly enough, The Onion published an article about Siegfried & Roy two days before this happened.

CNN story Yet another 3-judge panel from our nation's official Court on LSD (CoL) has made yet another boneheaded decision. A law requiring federal prisoners (including those on parole) to have their DNA entered into a nationally accessible database for law enforcement agencies has been deemed an unconstitutional invasion of privacy, amounting to an illegal search, and thus in violation of the Fourth Amendment. I'm confused. DNA matching is one of the most reliable evidentiary procedures available today and you'd think that prisoners who don't intend to commit crimes in the future would welcome it. But our loveable CoL has decided that quickly, easily, and certainly clearing the names of innocents who might come under suspicion on the basis of past convictions is somehow a violation of their rights.

Agreed. These late-breaking attacks are pinpricks, if that.

Revolting. Those NAMBLA freaks need to be taken down hard on this one, and the ACLU along with them.

...oh, for fuck's sake. <slaps herself on the forehead> Don't know what the hell I was thinking. Sorry, Jobber, and thanks, Agent. Remind me never again to post before I've had my morning coffee.

I thought it was pretty funny, and I don't know where the hell you got this from. I don't even see one single post from Tom in this thread. Unless Citrus's name is also Tom, in which case I still don't see how you could possibly think he was saying the kid "deserved it." You've been way off base lately. Getting enough sleep?

Um, Germany lost the last war. Or did you skip that chapter?

Yes, but I was answering the question of an al-Qaeda link, not a specific 9/11 link. And there was an al-Qaeda link. I'm not sure who's supposed to have made that connexion in the first place. It certainly wasn't the President, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, or the DCI. And it wasn't me either. As far as I know there is no indication of any direct link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.

No, of course not. Just means that it's not Vietnam. As the President said at the beginning of Operation Infinite Justice, our mission is defined; our objectives are clear; our goal is just.

Oh yeah. Hmm. I read a while ago in a book by Michael Shermer (Why People Believe Weird Things) that the story about soap made from human fat wasn't really true - and the author is very far from a Holocaust denier or revisionist; in fact, he's debated them several times on television to refute their claims, and he doesn't share any of their beliefs or conclusions regarding the extent of the Nazi crimes - over 6 million dead &c, all the generally accepted facts, he has no problem with. Just a few things which he says are myths (and he has some fairly convincing documentation to support his conclusions). I don't know if this skin-lampshade thing is another such case, but it does sound like it. EDIT: Here's a link to an open letter Dr Shermer wrote to Holocaust revisionists.

Okay, that was bloody hilarious. Thanks a lot, Mike - I was drinking my tea when I read it and it took several minutes to clean up the monitor.

Let's just say that at that school, you should avoid any "mystery meat" type dishes. -=Mike Mike, that's just awful. Nah. If I said that you shouldn't ask why the school flag looks weird, then THAT would be awful. -=Mike ... I don't get it. Am I just being really slow tonight?

"Volunteers are not hard to come by, as many of the soldiers have now experienced the appreciation that the Iraqi villagers displayed. More than one soldier expressed that it had been their best day yet since arriving in Iraq a month or two previously. And it is likely that it was the best day in quite some time for the Iraqi villagers too." - Army's 244th Engineers in Tikrit Similar reports can be found all over the Web. This isn't true of anyone I know in the armed forces of the United States. Saddam Hussein was giving $25k per Palestinian suicide bomber to their families in Israel. Iraqi anti-aircraft missiles regularly shot at our fighter jets. Iraq failed to disarm as it had agreed to do after the Gulf War. No imminent threat was required to justify war. Ansar al-Islam was a terrorist group under the al-Qaeda umbrella. They operated out of Northern Iraq and slaughtered Kurdish villages such as Khela Hama on a regular basis. Next. Wars almost invariably help the economy. No? The country is over 271,583 miles square. That's over 100,000 square miles bigger than the state of California. And Saddam Hussein's had YEARS to hide his toys. If we wait for that kind of imminent threat, your first evidence will be a body count that makes 9/11 seem as serious, orderly, and civilised as brief disagreement over a head of lettuce involving two elderly aunts somewhere in Martha's Vineyard. President Bush said it best: "Some citizens wonder, after 11 years of living with this problem, why do we need to confront it now? And there's a reason. We've experienced the horror of September the 11th. We have seen that those who hate America are willing to crash airplanes into buildings full of innocent people. Our enemies would be no less willing, in fact, they would be eager, to use biological or chemical, or a nuclear weapon. Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. As President Kennedy said in October of 1962, "Neither the United States of America, nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small. We no longer live in a world," he said, 'where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nations security to constitute maximum peril.' Understanding the threats of our time, knowing the designs and deceptions of the Iraqi regime, we have every reason to assume the worst, and we have an urgent duty to prevent the worst from occurring." - Cincinnati, OH 10/07/02 No, there's no need for that, and I agree, we shouldn't play the role of a global cop. Look up a few lines at what the President said for the real reasons we had to go in. A very shortsighted opinion. Preventing further terrorist attacks is a vastly more important task than helping the homeless.

So would I. But I'm less concerned about protecting 140,000 soldiers than I am about protecting 290,000,000 citizens. Our soldiers can take care of themselves. They're well-trained and well-equipped, and they're the best in the world. Their morale is high, they're doing good work, and they don't want to do a half-assed job. We can help them best by giving them the support they need and NOT pulling them out before they've had time to wrap things up. If we do that again they'll only be heading back in another few years. Irrelevant. Terrorism or support for terrorism of any kind can no longer be suffered. Yet. It absolutely is. We have to prove that we have the resolve to see this through. It was precisely the kinds of actions you are advocating that gave al-Qaeda the nerve to pull off 9/11. They thought we'd run back to our borders as soon as the first body bags arrived. They have now learned that a great deal has changed since Mogadishu. I didn't really imagine you would, but I thought I'd try anyway. You're quibbling over less than 1% of our GDP. Do you have any idea what kind of domino effect a stable, secular, friendly, and democratic Iraq could have on the region? Do you have any idea what that would mean for our national security? If only economic considerations carry weight with you, consider the fact that we'd save trillions over ten short years in force projection alone.

Read the article. "We not only need Iraqi tips and intelligence, we need Iraqis fighting by our side and eventually assuming full responsibility for their internal security. But Iraqis have not forgotten the 1991 Gulf War. America encouraged the Shiites to rebel, then abandoned them to be slaughtered. I visited one of the mass graves, mute testimony to the wisdom of being cautious about relying on American politicians to live up to their commitments. For Iraqis, news of America's resolve is critical to any decision to cooperate with coalition forces, a decision that can lead to death. Newspaper start-up ventures and sales of satellite dishes absolutely exploded following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. With this on top of the Internet, Iraqis do get the picture from America - literally... Instead of being negative about Iraq, Democratic presidential candidates should emphasize the positive aspects of their own plans for Iraq. Save the negative attacks for the issues of jobs and the economy. Iraqis are far less likely to support the coalition effort if they think America might withdraw following the 2004 election." Like, say, building a memorial to the people who died in the WTC, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Or giving the families of the victims some closure and comfort, and doing our utmost to ensure that nothing like 9/11 will ever happen again. Or living up to the ideals enshrined in our own Constitution. Not worth $100 billion? It's worth much, much more than that to me.

Yeah, we discussed it in class today. Everyone concluded that its a critique on how men prefer not to know about their women's various bodily functions and what not. Oh, good Lord... okay, Spicy, do you want to do this or shall I?

Fairly lame.

Well, he seemed to think pretty much every place he went was racist. <g> I don't think it ever sunk in that no one really gave a flying fuck about his skin colour; it was his personality most people couldn't stand. Yeah, I just realised that after I posted it. Sorry.

I'm glad he's gone because he was a goddamn nigger. We don't need his type here at the KKK - er, TSM, rather. Spoiler (Highlight to Read): Yes, for anyone who's as dim as he was, that was completely over-the-top sarcasm. Sorry if I ruined your fun.

And the point would be?