Firestarter

Well, first of all, there's a big desk at the entrance where security guards temporarily confiscate people's cameras as they enter. Second, he was trying to conceal his tiny little disposable camera in his jacket and every time a guard walked by he'd stuff it back into his pocket. Third, when I told him to stop it, he argued with me in English. Fourth, when I told a guard to kick him out, he argued with the guard in English. Fifth, it's standard practice all over the world to forbid flash photography in art galleries. And finally, there was quite a large "pictographic symbol along the lines of the Ghostbusters logo" at the aforementioned entrance. But maybe I'm easily convinced.

Few people can. Well, he didn't have to. He could've chosen practically any one of your threads. Maybe he just flipped a coin. It was at the time. Now it's just a tired farce.

Because, to paraphrase Prime Minister Jim Hacker, "You've only got to say a couple of lines in the East End and the press want to know your opinion about everything. Start an article with a picture of the Deputy Secretary for Trade and Industry, and nobody wants to read it." And I know I've mentioned this counterexample before, but it deserves repetition. When, following the success of Seven Years in Tibet, Brad Pitt was interviewed by Time Magazine, he said this: "You shouldn't speak until you know what you're talking about. That's why I get uncomfortable with interviews. Reporters ask me what I feel China should do about Tibet. Who cares what I think China should do? I'm a fucking actor. They hand me a script, I act. I'm here for entertainment. Basically, when you whittle everything away, I'm a grown man who puts on makeup." Reading that, I felt like Diogenes at the end of my search.

I make life miserable for the DNC. Terry McAuliffe whimpers when he hears my name, and some Senate aides have been known to hide in closets or behind desks when I walk into a room. It's a vocation.

But I WANNA shoot at Democrats!

Daddy, I want a new M82A2. The old one broke.

How can you blame them? He reacts beautifully every time. And he tries to make historical comparisons between genocidal fascists and wrestling promoters. Mocking Mole is not just good clean fun, it's a calling.

I try to take people seriously when they say things. I don't immediately hunt for reasons why they MIGHT not have meant what they said. You do, naturally: your preconceived notions allow you to admit no possibility that might contradict them. If someone makes an uncoerced statement, I don't have to provide any "proof" that he meant what he said. I take it at face value unless I have reason to do otherwise. In this case, I have none. And all you offer are inane hypotheticals. I know. I don't care. Your beliefs are irrelevant. Have you grasped that yet? Shut your ignorant mouth. So basically, you can't refute any of the evidence, and you have no new or valid arguments to advance, but you're going to stick by your "point" regardless. I'm sure that's just marvellous for you, but why tell me? It has nothing to do with me. It has nothing to do with the facts. In fact, it has nothing at all to do with anyone but you. So be a dear and keep it to yourself.

Of course. It's an indicator of trends. The summary at the end of my post is as true today as it was then.

All right, every last one of you is spewing unsubstantiated horseshit, so let's clean up the stables a bit and get some facts on the table. "Currently, 29 percent of African Americans drop out of college after less than one year, compared to 18 percent of whites." Source: The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, 7/12/00 "By race, 42 percent of White (high school) graduates 18 to 24 years old were enrolled in college in 1993, compared with 33 percent of Blacks... During the past 20 years, while the gap in high school graduation rates narrowed for Blacks and Whites, the gap in college attendance of those graduates has not narrowed." Source: United States Census Bureau, 01/18/01 In other words, blacks have a lower absolute (not in terms of population size) college enrollment rate than whites, and a higher absolute college dropout rate once they enroll. Now feel free to continue.

This is precisely the problem. You have no proof for anything you say. It was made at a party, and the dude probably had a few. Calling Israel a "shitty little country" may well have just been a bad taste joke. "Probably," "may well have just been," "I still believe." Well, that's fine and dandy, but it's also irrelevant. No one cares about what you believe. I just want to know what you can prove. You're trying vainly to explain away blatantly anti-Semitic remarks because of your ridiculous belief that France can do no wrong. Evidence against the French makes no difference. There must have been a reason for him to say what he said. Obviously he couldn't have meant it that way. He must have been drunk. And so on. Appropriately enough, these are the shameless apologetics of a drunk and nothing more. But at least a drunk's judgement is affected by external factors, whereas you're only intoxicated by your own intractable, uncritical, and downright stupid beliefs. You don't even have an excuse.

I'd shoot your loud retro gear-wearing ass before you could even pull the knife. I'd pay you.

Let me be the first. You're a douchebag.

Absolutely not, regardless of the logic. Just because Mole is a pathetic little halfwit who deserves anything and everything he gets.

Daniel Bernard, the French ambassador, said "that shitty little country, Israel" was the cause of all the world's troubles: "Why should the world be in danger of World War III because of those people?" It wasn't a "joke," he wasn't just "a politician," and what he said had nothing to do with Israel being a threat to France. Kindly refrain from lying about the ambassador's statements. Oh, and one other thing: it took over one and a half years after his statements for Bernard to be recalled. Trent Lott: mere days. Are you still eager to compare our supposed anti-black prejudice to France's demonstrated anti-Semitism?

^ rhymes with... well, fuck all.

Music Folder Champion Round 1 Voting Incandenza vs. Kinetic Neither (No vote. Both Inc and Kinetic kick ass, although I don't read their Music folder posts.) and CoreyLazarus vs. Agent Of Oblivion Agent of Oblivion (Partisan vote. Hail comrade!) Movies Folder Champion Round 1 Voting Lethargic vs. Downhome Lethargic (Spite vote. Downhome's a Christian, and I want to see him eaten by lions.) and The Mighty Damaramu vs. Mr. Zsasz MrZsasz (Just for the recent gimmick. Hullo again darling!) General Chat Folder Champion Round 1 Voting Kotzenjunge vs. cobainwasmurdered cobainwasmurdered (Kylie, gnomes... Kylie, gnomes. Well, there are lots of pretty women in the world, but there aren't enough gnome terrorism threads. Gnomes win.) Lightning Flik vs. Kinetic Kinetic (Metal Ed owns your soul.) and Zack Malibu vs. Incandenza Incandenza (ALF is back. 'Nuff said.)

Of course not, Mike. I mean Jesus, they're white.

Is it okay if I vote for you in the General Chat category? I can do so with a clear conscience now that you've brought back the ALF avatar.

Thanks, DH. Quite apart from this particular thread, I have a good opinion of you as well, and your question is pertinent - if only for the amount of controversy this issue has aroused recently. Let's have this settled once and for all by the official arbiters.

It is. Statements A and B are both technically correct, but C just tries to muddy the waters by coming up with the wrong reason and the wrong prescription. It has nothing to do with Islam at all. It is neither correct nor false; it is a complete non sequitur. Here's the real attitude of Islam towards the "unbelievers," straight from the blood-soaked pages of the Koran itself: Non-violent? Tell it to the wind, kid.

Depending on the imam in question, he can have as much political sway as a cardinal during the Inquisition (one hell of a lot). Statement A, far from being false, is a fair description of a large number of imams in the Islamic world, though not by any means a large percentage. Statement B is functionally false but technically correct. since the word "jihad" is rarely used in that sense by anyone except Islamofascist apologists who want to make the Koran look less bloodthirsty to the naive and the uneducated. Statement C is incomplete at best because it ignores the self-evident fact that "legal opinions" of Islamic scholars are couched in the revelatory and unquestionable laws of the Koran. They are correctly understood as theological decrees, not "legal opinions." This is pure apologetics. No excuse can be made for the writer; he is willfully attempting to deceive his readers about the true nature of Islam. The question and answer strongly imply an equality among the sexes which does not exist and never has existed. The fact of the matter is that Islamic laws provide for a quick and easy way for men to divorce women, but women have to go through the misogynistic religious courts, demonstrate reasonable cause (and remember, a woman's testimony is worth half of a man's), and pay back her dowry (which would have been given by her parents; if she has no means of her own - and she probably wouldn't, as women cannot easily inherit property - this could very well be impossible). On top of that, not even subsistence alimony is provided for beyond a period of three months, and many women in many Islamic countries have neither the education nor the legal rights to work (if not all jobs, certainly a great many, especially those commonly available to unskilled workers). And finally, any children may be removed from her custody, practically on the whim of her ex-husband. Under unmitigated Islamic law, women are both in theory and in fact nothing more than chattel. They are slaves. To claim that a slave has the "same right" as her master to terminate the contract that binds them is beyond ludicrous. It is obscene.

The Bundy jokes were vaguely amusing. The French heatwave deaths thing was tasteless and stupid.

I don't think you're anything of the sort. I do think you're jumping on the bandwagon and making a big fucking mountain out of an insignificant molehill just because JMA stubbed his poor delicate toes once, and now hopping around on one foot bitching and whining seems to be the cool thing to do. I'm doing neither. Bashing the French because of their history, their current politics, and their abominable law and order situation is not racism. You're the one who used the word. I bash Palestinians all the time as well, and for similar reasons. If you were going to call someone racist, it should have been me, and on that issue; there was no reason to harp on stupid, insensitive anti-French comments which were obviously intended as a joke in the first place and failed miserably at that in the second. Why don't you ask me why I hate the Palestinians as a race? I do. And for perfectly sound reasons which have NOTHING to do with their colour. I don't think it's impossible for a Palestinian to be a good person; I just think that the overwhelming majority aren't - and that's a result of their culture, their religion, their indoctrination, and the way other people manipulate them and use them as weapons. It's a statement of fact, not a racist opinion. Just like my distaste for the French is based on facts, on their own actions, not "racial" prejudice (however the hell you want to define that). I've criticised black people quite often in the past (affirmative action; corruption, incompetence, and just plain evil in Africa; ingratitude in both Africa and America; the stupidity of reparations claims), and from time to time I've even criticised Israel when their actions deserved it. Does that make me a KKK Grand Wizard and a neo-Nazi? According to your thinking, perhaps so.

Are you saying it's institutionalised, unpenalised, and commonly accepted, as it is in France?